A/N - Hey guys, short chapter here! Thanks for everyone who has read so far, and sent me some feedback on the reviews or by PM. I appreciate it. To answer a couple of questions, I have written about 17 chapters so far, and I'd guess the whole thing will have 25. Yes I will definitely finish it, and yes I will definitely post all of it! It is a little bit of a slow burner, but I like to think it has enough going on to keep you interested :)

Cheers,

Sam

Over the first few days of their assignment, Gail had settled into an easy routine. She would arrive at Holly's around seven pm to start her night shift and so far spending the next twelve hours there hadn't yet felt constricting...much to her surprise. It helped that Holly was easy to get along with and talk to, as their conversation that first night had proved. Sanderson had come in to grab some dinner soon after their talk and when Holly had casually asked him if he had any siblings, his response that he was an only child had caused gales of laughter from both women. Scott was bemused but took it in good grace and later told Gail that he was glad she was getting on with their charge as it would make the job easier on everyone. Gail didn't know about that, but after spending a night in the surveillance van she knew she much preferred being in the house. She had been bored out of her skull. She and Sanderson had agreed to take it in turns to man the van, but the officer from Vancouver had already done more than his fair share. Gail pressed him to let her take her turn…as much as she hated van duty, it was only fair, but Sanderson had explained he was studying for his detective rotation and could get plenty done out there. She had been surprised to hear he was pushing for detective already though, as the rangy officer was a year or two younger than she was and seemed to enjoy these protection details. Yet another example of someone with more drive and ambition than herself she supposed.

Still, if it meant she spent more time out of the van, Gail was definitely a big supporter of Sanderson's application. Hopefully she could continue getting along with Holly as she had to admit that she was enjoying spending time with her. It usually took Gail a while to get to know people; she was guarded around strangers and didn't have the easy rapport that the likes of Traci and Chris could strike up. But Holly was interesting and funny and sort of cool in a very nerdy way. She liked the way the doctor kept her on her toes by firing Gail's challenges straight back and not being fazed by Gail's cynicism. Holly's laid back approach kind of reminded Gail of Nick. He was another one that met her bite with a lazy smile and quick response, though he had always seemed a little confused by her whereas Holly had that twinkle in her eye that suggested she knew exactly where Gail was coming from.

Holly had adapted to the presence of the officers now, and there had been no repeat of her anger that first night. If anything, she seemed to like having some company and was always the first to strike up a conversation with Gail or Scott, even when they tried to follow McGregor's instructions to stay aloof and out the way. She was already teasing Gail gently and was able to fend off the cop's barbs without taking any sort of offence. Some of Gail's friends had taken years to learn how to do that, but it came naturally to Holly and the two women had settled into what was fast becoming an early friendship.

Last night had brought a new facet to their tentative friendship however, when Gail had found Holly's collection of classic board games. It turned out the doctor was a big fan and something of a collector, but she didn't just buy new versions; she went out of her way to find older editions of the games. Yesterday the two of them had shared an epic battle over the Monopoly board despite Gail's assertion that they would need to apply a huge inflation rate to the fake money contained in the 1970's game set to make it more "realistic". Holly had queried whether owning half of London was ever a realistic scenario in Gail's mind, but they had agreed to differ on that one. It was difficult to play with Gail having to get up every half hour to do her security checks or touch base with Sanderson, but the police officer eventually triumphed when Holly landed on her Oxford Street hotel. Gail refused to take Holly's shirt as rent payment, having already won her glasses, watch and first born child and demanded the cold hard cash that Holly didn't have. The doctor had been forced to declare herself bankrupt much to Gail's glee…although strip Monopoly was a concept the blonde hadn't thought of before and made a mental note to return to another time.

This evening however Holly had demanded a chance to gain revenge, and the two women were currently trying to decide what would be their battleground.

"Operation?" Holly said, full of hope.

"No way. Could you be more of a cliché, Doc?" Gail asked rhetorically. She held up another pristine game that looked older than she herself. "Clue?"

Holly stared at her. "So the doctor wanting to play Operation is a cliché, but the cop suggesting Clue isn't?"

Gail shrugged. "I'm not on the murder squad. Maybe it would help advance my career. Mother would love that," she mused.

"Veto. How about Scrabble?" she asked.

"No nerdy science words allowed?" Gail looked at her hard, suspicious of Holly's motive.

"I can't promise to not use a scientific term, Gail! That's a lot of words you're taking off the table!"

"Well I'm ok with normal language. But no Latin or chemicals or anything like that," Gail countered.

"Done," Holly agreed and they shook hands on it before pulling out the game and setting up.

As they played, Holly watched the cop from under her eyelids, confident Gail was focussing on the game and wouldn't notice she was under scrutiny. The blonde was frowning down at her letters, shifting them around on the stand as she looked for a good option. Her blue eyes shone with intensity and she casually blew a strand of hair away from her face.

Holly couldn't help but stare; Gail fascinated her. When they had first met, Holly had immediately noticed how beautiful the blonde was. She'd even told Lisa that one of the officers assigned to protect her was hot. But the more she got to know Gail, the more she realised that Gail Peck challenged her and Holly liked that. The unexpected twists and turns of Gail's character were fun, but she was also intrigued by the quieter, more vulnerable side of the police officer. The immediate attraction she had felt towards Gail was still there but it was now accompanied by an impulsive desire deep in the pit of her stomach to spend more time with her. She was trying to ignore it, she really was, as Holly knew no good could come of this. She didn't even know if Gail was gay; and even if she was then she was still off limits. The woman was only here to do her job; she wasn't a friend or a pick up from a bar or even a blind date. If Holly had met her under different circumstances then she probably would have pursued the attraction, but that wasn't going to happen here. All Holly had to do now was to convince herself of that and stop checking out the woman she had to spend twelve hours a day with. It should have been a simple task when she was asleep for most of those twelve hours, but here she was again watching the curve of Gail's lip as she softly blew away that strand of hair. Dammit, Holly thought. You've got it bad, Stewart.

Gail laid out her letters on the board and sat back to grin at Holly, before noticing the doctor was kind of gazing off into space. "Hey!" she demanded.

"I'm sorry?" Holly replied, bringing her attention back.

"What are you staring at?" Gail asked.

Holly coloured slightly; she hadn't realised she was being that obvious. She dropped her chin to avoid making eye contact with the woman sat opposite her and stared down at the board.

"That's not a word," she stated, spotting the way out of this awkward moment and grasping it with both hands. She pointed at the six tiles Gail had placed and raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah it is," replied the cop.

"Geekish? You've made that up!" Holly argued.

"What? You of all people should know that word!" Gail pointed out with a shrug.

"Use it in a sentence,"

Gail opened her mouth and closed it with a snap as she sought to answer the test.

"Exactly!" Holly said with satisfaction and lifted her hand to push Gail's tiles off the board.

The blonde moved swiftly to grab the hand before Holly could sweep away her double word score. "Holly showed her geekish tendencies by challenging Gail's excellent choice of word," she recited, with a sweet smile.

Holly froze as she stared at Gail's fingers wrapped around her own. When the cop noticed the direction of Holly's gaze, she let go immediately, thinking she had overstepped the mark. Holly felt a strange sense of loss as the cool fingers slid away from her own. The brief contact had caused her stomach to flip and she couldn't help the smile that curled at the corners of her mouth. She knew right then that this attraction wasn't going to disappear any time soon and it was going to cause her trouble, but for that split second, she didn't care.

"Whatever, Gail. Get the dictionary," she said softly, pointing towards the bookshelves over by the television.

Sure enough, the Oxford English Dictionary proved Holly right, and much to her disgust Gail was forced to remove the last three letters from her effort. She complained about the lack of a proper dictionary and mumbled something about the ever evolving nature of language.

"You know, technically the rules state you should lose your turn completely if you attempt an incorrect word. You're lucky I'm allowing you geek," Holly told her with a grin.

"Well how very geekish of you to know that too, Dr Stewart," Gail said, with false admiration.

"I think you mean geeky," Holly replied.

"I can't actually say what I mean, because I am here in a work capacity," was the response from one very annoyed police officer. "Just take your turn, Stewart."

Holly laughed and laid out her tiles with a flourish, rubbing salt in the wounds by hitting the double word score Gail had been aiming for. "Read them and weep," she exulted, scrawling down her score on the scrap of paper they were using to tally up.

"Sexy." Gail read out.

"Yep!" Holly grinned back, pleased with herself.

"Right, fine – you're allowed to describe me, but I can't describe you. I see how this game works!" Gail gave an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders and rocked back on her chair to emphasise her disengagement in the game.

"Well it wasn't quite my top choice, but I didn't have the letters for cocky or stroppy," Holly fired straight back.

Gail's jaw dropped and she thumped the chair legs back to the floor. She snorted a quick laugh, then Holly winked at her and it was the sheer cheek of that gesture that made Gail feel the need to win this battle.

"Well that's good to know," she started, casually shuffling her letters and deliberately not looking at Holly. She picked up her glass and sipped the last of her juice.

"What is?" Holly asked, still smirking at her own teasing.

"That if you were going to pick a word to describe me, sexy would be in the top three!" Gail said, returning the wink that Holly had thrown.

The smirk fell straight off Holly's face and her mouth hung open slightly as she started at the cackling blonde. She shook her head slightly in an attempt to shrug off the surprise. Was Gail flirting with her? Surely not. She tried to speak but couldn't form words and so coughed slightly to style out her silence. Just then the shrill tone of her phone cut through the room, and rescued her from having to come up with a smart retort. She grabbed the phone from the table and answered the call as she walked away into the kitchen. "Hello, Doctor Stewart speaking,".

Gail gave herself a mental pat on the back. "Saved by the bell Stewart," she mumbled at Holly's retreating form. She debated listening in to the call as her own phone had just vibrated in her pocket but judging by the way Holly had answered the call it sounded like it was work related. Gail already felt guilty about eavesdropping on Holly's calls. After the one she had overheard on her first day, she had only listened to one more which was basically Holly bitching to her mother about not being able to go for her usual morning run. But when Holly and her mom had started talking about their fears for Kate, Gail had felt like an intruder. She knew Sanderson felt the same, and was ignoring calls from Holly's mom, although he picked up when it was one of her friends. McNally had refused to eavesdrop from the start of course but she would guess McGregor played things by the book and listened to everything.

But Gail wasn't interested in the phone call; she was having plenty of fun teasing the other woman. Gail had noticed the blush spread across Holly's face at the light flirting, and kind of found it endearing. She wanted to see that blush again, and as soon as she thought that, several other ways of making Holly blush flashed through her mind…not all of them clean. Gail found herself getting a little warm. Where had that come from, she asked herself. Holly was a beautiful woman obviously; Gail had noticed that from the start. But it was quite a step from noticing how attractive someone was on a purely aesthetic basis, to imagining them flushed and naked in your bed. Gail swallowed hard and gave herself a mental slap to put those thoughts firmly out of mind. Clearly it had been too long without sex for her if she was going to start fantasising about women now. But she did have to admit, Holly was the first person who had caught her attention in any way, shape or form since Nick. She figured that was why her feelings had run away from her somewhat.

As she waited for the doctor to return, Gail amused herself by replacing Holly's tiles with the trickiest letters she could find in the box. There couldn't be many words with J, Z, Y, B, W, Q, and F in them she thought to herself and even Holly the genius would struggle to find one.

Gail was startled out of her mischief making when she heard the front door open. She jumped out of her chair and her hand was on her weapon before Sanderson poked his head round the dividing wall.

"Scrabble? Really?" he asked, surveying the scene in front of him.

"It's educational," Gail told him, and threw the letter D at him.

"She's been called in," Scott said, ignoring the tiny missile that bounced off his chest. "Someone has stumbled across a body in the woods that they need her to look at, so we're tagging along of course,"

"Oh goody," Gail answered, not looking forward to the prospect of spending a few hours in the dark and damp woods. Although it would be a change to the norm at least.

"Well you're the lucky one Peck. Fifteen aren't on the scene, so you can be front and centre, not even hidden in the van! Bring a coat, its freezing!" Sanderson laughed at Gail's shiver and disappeared back towards the front door. Gail went to follow before stopping suddenly. She bent to retrieve the tile she had flicked at the other officer. She carefully placed it back in the box, thinking she wouldn't want Holly to lose any of the pieces, as she looked after these games so well. Although when she noticed the score sheet and realised Holly was beating her soundly, she figured it wouldn't do any harm to lose that and so stuffed it in her pocket.

"Ready, Peck?" came the shout from Sanderson, and she abandoned the half-finished game to join him and Holly at the door, picking up the doctor's kit on the way.

"Got your lunchbox, Doc," she smirked. "Lead the way Sanderson!"