"You know how this happened right?" Gail asked, propping her feet up onto a desk.
The science teacher stopped her assault on the door and turned to the blonde. "How?"
She left Holly waiting for a moment, she took her time picking which one of the candy bars she was going to steal from Mr. Shaw's 'secret' stash. Once it was chosen she lounged back and met the brunette's waiting gaze, slowly unwrapping the chocolate bar. "It seems the school thinks locking us in a room together will make our ship canon."
"What?" Holly asked, perplexed. "What the hell does that even mean?"
"Ship is when you think two people should be together, our ship name is Golly. Canon basically means official." Gail bit off a piece as she spoke. Her students had taught her all of the lingo the other day when they had extra time. She'd over heard a couple of the kids talking and had asked what it all meant, she'd heard the terms before, and it exploded into the entire class joining in and telling her about the ships around the school. There were those who shipped Mr. Epstein and Mr. Diaz, those who preferred Mr. Epstein with Ms. Price, and there were fights over whether or not Mr. Collins was better for McNally or Mr. Swarek. And lastly there were the ones set in stone, the ones no one would argue with, Mr. Shaw and Celery, and her and Holly.
"Let me get this straight-"
"That's really far on the other end of the spectrum of what's expected to happen here, but, continue." Gail cut her off with a smirk. Holly sent her a look that told her to knock it off, which only helped to make matters worse in her case.
"Our students locked us in here because they think we should." The end of her sentence trailed off.
"Fornicate? Yeah." Gail watched with delight as the easily flustered science nerd grew bright red. Getting Holly to blush, to fumble over words, to drop stacks of paper, was Gail's favourite pass time and probably a huge reason how they got stuck where they were.
"Gail." Holly reprimanded, taking the few steps to Oliver's desk and slapping the blondes leg.
"I thought honesty was the policy, Hol. And I should add that it's not just our students, it's all of them, including the rest of the staff."
Holly groaned. Giving up on all fighting against the locked door she walked around her friends desk, opened the same drawer Gail had moments ago, and pulled out a king sized Reese's. Then she made her way back around the messy desk and sat on the desk opposite Gail. "You seem to know a lot about what's going on, Gail, care to share?"
Gail smiled, an appealing and adorable mix of shy, amused, and mischievous. "You know me, Nerd, I'm not the sharing type."
"You seemed to have no problem with it last week when you gave me one of your doughnuts." Holly challenged.
"I let you take one because it was an endless Wednesday, I was dying of boredom, and watching the shippers freak out is entertaining."
"You used me?"
"That's what friends are for." Gail threw the drawer open again and fished another treat out. She knew Oliver was a part of the plan, the balding man was practically captain of the Golly ship, and she was going to milk all that she could from the situation at hand.
"Friends also tell each other stuff, I thought we did that."
Gail sighed internally. Holly had won, tugging on her heart stings with the slight downturn of her voice and the touch of 'I guess I was wrong' in her eyes. She rolled her eyes as not to give away why she really was giving in.
"First I heard of it was after the Halloween dance. Apparently dressing as Han and Leia wasn't such a great idea, especially when we already had, and I quote, 'adorable couple-y' tendencies." Holly snorted at that part. Gail smiled in turn. "My coming to your lab to get you to use one of those burner thingies to heat my coffees is one of those couple-y things. So is your constant stealing of my stapler, my use of your classroom closet, your odd use of the water fountain by my classroom rather than the one around the corner from yours, my attending the classes where you explode things, the list goes on."
"Huh." Was all Holly replied with, spaced out in her own little world. She'd noticed those things too, hoped they meant more than just platonic friendship, hoped she wasn't alone in wanting it to be more.
They both fell silent and stared off into nothing.
It'd started at the beginning of the school year, her feelings for Gail, the moment when she stopped seeing her as a friend and started dreaming of her in a very non platonic way.
They'd been friends for years. They worked just down the hall from each other, saw one another countless times in the halls, in the break room, after hours and closing up. Hell they even managed to run into each other in grocery stores and bars. It was hard not to fall into friendship. And it was easy, the two of them together, conversation and laughter and sharing was as natural as breathing with them. They fit.
And then Holly had to go and develop feelings.
It was one moment, one glimpse of the blonde, and she was a goner.
She had been on her way out to her car, she'd stayed late to clean off her desk and write the next days board, when she spotted Gail and one of her favourite students. Gail wouldn't ever say it out loud but she'd taken a shining to Frankie, so it wasn't the fact that the two were sitting together out on the front steps that had stopped Holly in her tracks, but the fact that it was going on seven o'clock. Before she could make her presences known, she didn't want to invade anyone's privacy, the two stood and hugged. Hugs were not something Gail gave out often. Holly knew that well, had seen the looks from Gail's other friends when she got them when leaving bars early, she wore each and every hug with pride. And there she was, hugging her student in what looked to be comfort.
"We'll go to the station tomorrow, I know a guy who'll personally make sure this doesn't get swept under the rug, and we'll sort out the details then." Gail said calmly, too calmly for Holly's liking. She knew that tone, knew that as the voice she had been taught to use when she became a police officer, it was her rock-in-the-middle-of-a-storm voice for victims. The words that strung together in that tone didn't make her feel any better either. Gail had been referring to her police connections, her family and friends on the force.
The hug broke and Gail bumped into the brunette's shoulder. "I hope you like cold Chinese food because it's all I've got in my fridge right now. Unless you've got some money to splurge on something else." The English teacher teased.
Frankie retaliated with a push of her own. "Chinese is fine. Besides I'm gonna need to save all that I can."
"You can stay with me for as long as you need to." Gail reassured quickly and turned to meet her eye. She froze for a split second when she saw Holly.
Holly looked back like a deer caught in headlights. She really hadn't meant to interrupt, to over hear, to now be worried sick over whatever reason it was that Gail was giving her couch and leftovers to their student. But it happened. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
Gail cut her off with a raise hand. She turned back to Frankie, who had also turned at the look on her teachers face, and told her to go wait at her car. Frankie swiftly took the offered keys from the blonde and parted with one more quickly glance at Holly. Once out of hearing range Gail started.
"I can't really give you details, it's not my place, but Frankie can't go home and I can't let her sleep on the streets." Gail explained. "Which means I have to call a rain check on our plans."
Holly took the few steps down the first flight of stairs and stopped directly in front of her friend. "Call me if you need anything, if either of you need anything." Gail corked a smile and Holly's heart jumped. Weird. That'd never happened before, she thought.
"Will do Doc."
She didn't know it then but that was the moment everything changed. That was the moment Gail wasn't just Gail anymore. That was the moment she fell for Gail and couldn't get up.
"I think it's the looks that does it the most." Gail thought aloud and lazed her head to the side to look at the brunette.
Holly shook out of her thoughts and locked onto blue eyes curiously. "Hmm?"
"The looks, I think that's the biggest attribute to the shipping. I don't know about you but when I ship characters it's the looks that get me the most."
"We aren't characters." Holly pointed out. She thought they were off the topic. All the talk about shipping and them, all the reasons they were a couple, their relationship picked and dissected to be proven together, was slowly killing her. Then to hear it all from Gail, to watch it all fall off of her tongue and listen to her softly tell her all the things she spends everyday trying not to think about, well that was torture.
"That part doesn't matter, there's still looks. There's heart eyes and twinkles, there's smiles and silent conversations, and sometimes, sometimes I even think there's longing." Gail grows quiet at the end, lost in the moment, lost until she found warm brown irises and she cleared her throat. She dropped her feet off the hardwood with a loud thump and shifted back in Oliver's chair, whipping out her phone a second later. She flicked around on the device while Holly tried to form words.
She watched as Gail began pacing around the room."You think there's heart eyes and stuff?" She tried to keep the burning hopefulness out of her voice.
Gail's head shot up instantly, stopping dead in her tracks. "You don't?"
Holly shook her head and held in a wince when Gail's face fell ever so slightly. She hadn't meant it like that. "I thought I was just seeing things." She confessed. She chewed on her bottom lip, her nerves taking over every cell in her body.
"What." Gail asked blankly.
Holly stood too. She was too nervous to sit, too antsy. It was now or never, she thought to herself. She cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her pants. "I thought it was just me who saw those things."
Gail offered her a shy smile and took a step toward her. "Definitely not just you."
"So Ms. Peck did you finally buck up and ask her out?" Traci Nash, one of Gail's favourite students, questioned just as she'd entered the classroom.
"Ask who out?" She feigned ignorance as she set her coffee on her desk and started to write the lesson on the board.
The handful of students that were there rolled their eyes and groaned simultaneously. This was her oldest class, the kids she been teaching and watching grow for the last four years, the ones she was determined had built the Golly ship their freshman year when she started there. It was early, first period, and the questions had already started before the bell had even rung. Gail smiled amusingly but wiped it off her face before turning to her students, she was cut off before she could comment on their reaction.
"Hey, sorry, I think you took mine by accident." Holly stepped into the doorjamb, wiggling her travel mug to indicate what she was talking about. Gail looked from the brunette to the almost identical mug on her desk.
"Oh."
Holly cracked a half formed smile.
"You know what this means right? They totally got ready together this morning." One of the students in the front not so quietly whispered to another. Gail chose to ignore the comment, no matter how close to the truth it had been. Besides she had her attention held by something- someone far more interesting. Although she quirked a smirk at the fellow teacher and spun around to grab the coffee from her desk.
"My bad. Actually no," she began to apologize, picking up the mug of over creamed coffee but stopped as she turned back. It wasn't her fault at all, she shouldn't be the one to apologize for taking the wrong mug. "You're the one who made them, and this one was the one on my side of the tray in the car."
"You know I put mine in the opposite holder." Holly accused, poorly containing her amusement at the silly argument.
Gail scuffed, slowly approaching the brunette.
"Very good point. What was I thinking." She teased the blonde on her lack of a rebuttal.
Gail replied with a roll of her eyes. A few more steps and she was almost toe to toe with Holly. Holly visibly swallowed, shifting from playful and teasing to the familiar anticipation of something. It would usually be the time they'd kiss or do something of the sort. But both were all too aware of their audience. The very audience who, in some ways, were the cause for an edge of their seat show. The reason there were moments to hesitate in something that become so easy. Kissing was easy and plentiful. She wanted to kiss Holly -god she wanted to kiss her-, but she wasn't one to do so with prying stares, and it would be very unprofessional of them. So Gail switched their mugs and kept the intense eye contact, urging Holly to see how badly she wanted her, how much she wanted to wrap her arms around her and kiss her senseless.
"Kiss her already!" One kid shouted, urged.
"We're all dying just do it, please!" Another chimed in dramatically.
The two teachers breathed out a laugh, moment broken, and stepped back to lessen the temptation to listen. Gail glanced over her shoulder to glared down the teens, which did nothing to persuade them.
"You guys are insufferable." She informed them in annoyance.
"You should hear my students if you think this is insufferable." Holly murmured to her girlfriend. "And they're nothing compared to you." She lowered her voice even further with a triumphantly smirk. An adorable little cork of her lips that Gail could never resist.
"You're insufferable." Gail grumbled under her breath.
"You're adorable." Holly said in the most smitten voice she'd ever heard. Gail couldn't find it in herself to frown at the words when they were said in such a way, but only because it was Holly who said it like that.
"And I'm going to be late for class." Holly leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. "See you later Ms. Peck."
And just like that she was watching her girlfriend sway her hips down the busy hall, her students howling behind wildly, making the schools most popular ship finally canon.