General Notes: Okay, enough of the whining from me. Lets get on with it and hope it doesn't disappoint.

Chapter Notes: As mentioned in the last chapter, this has been written for some time. This is Holly's POV and I had intended to have this chapter much later, as I had hoped this would be at least an 8 chapter venture…alas, more than I could chew…hope this chapter pleases.

Editing Notes: I have provided an H: and an S: for the differentiation between Holly and her subconscious this time.

Chapter 6: This is War – Holly POV

It's the moment of truth, and the moment to lie,

The moment to live and the moment to die,

The moment to fight, the moment to fight

To fight, to fight, to fight!

30 Seconds to Mars

#####

Oliver. Oliver is standing in front of you. His face awash with anguish, thrusting a piece of paper at you. 'I want to show you something' he starts.

Your hands are shaking. The room feels too small and you know that this is important. You take the proffered object. Gail is laying in front of you fighting for her life and he wants you to take this pamphlet sized thing he is clutching in his hand. You turn it over in your hands like you've never seen a piece of paper before. One way to San Francisco?

'She was coming to get you. After shift today.'

Your hands are shaking and flying up to your mouth before you can stop them . You let out a sound that comes out a cross between a sob and a strangled 'noooo'.

'She was coming for me?'

'Yeah, said something like, "She's my Christina Yang. Get ready Lunchbox, I'm coming for you."' he looked away, not able to stop the tears as he whispered 'she said that your heart was her home and that she had to try. "'

Jesus Christ. That was it, she was across the room, clutching her hand, sobbing uncontrollably, words spilling out faster than she could form them 'please baby, please wake up. I was so stupid, I love you so god damn much, please, please don't leave. Fight, fight for this, for us. I want to hold you hand when we walk down the street because I can't bear for us not to be touching, I want to buy a house and fight over hooking up your damn gaming system in our bedroom and why you can't have the entire basement for a "man cave". I want to drag you to the nursery to pick out garden plants and watch your blank stares as I rattle off all the latin names. I want to love and fight and fuck and live with you by my side because your crazy and odd and introverted and protective and loyal and the absolute love of my god damn life. Please baby.'

Oliver silently crept out of the room. He couldn't watch, shouldn't be watching Holly plead for Gail's life.

#####

Day 2

Hospitals are lonely. The blur of scrubs and civilians mean it never empties, but everyone is here for a different reason. Everyone, is ultimately here alone. Officers come and go, somber and whispering platitudes. But you too are alone. You had saved lives, lost lives and spoke for lives. But you were never the person waiting for someone to live or die. Never waiting to see if your life would be forever changed because your everything was trapped in the space between life and death. Minutes pass into hours as you start to take stock of the last 2 days and your eyes flutter closed.

When your phone had buzzed for a solid 15 minutes and drained your battery, you had momentarily mused that phones weren't really that different from people. Maybe when they die, they vibrate and shake until their life gives out too. But your phone wasn't dead, just out of juice. Haptic feedback drained batteries faster than anything else. Once the charger brought it to life, the screen had blinked to life with 387, 388, 389 missed text messages. It was still buzzing. You stared for several seconds before swiping to make sure you were not hallucinating. But when it finally stopped, there were indeed 503 missed messages. You were confused at first. They were all appearing under Gail's contact. That couldn't be right. Clicking on Gail's name, it defaulted to the first message.

'Damn you Stewart. I am a mess! You really should see the public spectacle I am making of myself on your account.'

'Even I am starting to laugh.'

'The ticket taker thinks I'm crazy. If I don't show my badge soon, I think someone is going to call security.'

Gail had been at the airport. You wondered for a second why you hadn't seen her, but Gail could be stealth, although with that hair colour, you had no idea how. But if Gail didn't want to be seen, she wouldn't be seen. Your eyes softened, Gail must have been a sight with the crying and the laughing. You don't know what to do with the devastation that crept up on you when you realized that Gail had stayed to the last moment, in silence.

You found yourself sitting in your chair, 10 min later, work forgotten. You were smiling and tears were running down your cheeks. This woman was crazy. Crazy about you it seemed. Then it buzzed again.

That's weird, delay maybe?

The screen automatically flipped to the last message.

'i'm going to try calling now that I have a signal.'

Gail was going to call you, right now, out of the blue? You started to scroll up to get some sense, from her texts, as to why she was calling, but she was too fast and the screen came to life with an incoming call notification. As promised, it was Gail. You were shaking so bad you had to physically force yourself to concentrate just to make your finger swipe across the screen.. Had she realized she's sent the texts and was calling to explain.

S: Stop stalling Stewart and answer the damn phone! I'm going to kick your ass in a second.

You swiped, the call connected.

Not Gail.

Steve. Gail's brother.

All the blood drained from your face. And suddenly the noise from your heart racing through your ears made it hard to hear. You gripped your desk, because you had to hold onto something.

'Holly? Can you hear me?' barely

'I'm here Steve.' his voice was rough, The kind of rough you get after being up for too long and from crying.

'I...she's...its bad.' she heard him take a deep breath, gathering himself. 'She just keeps calling your name Holly. I didn't know what else to do.'

'What happened?' when he didn't answer, you realized your voice wasn't working. Vocal cord panic, you used to call it. When a situation was just so overwhelming that your vocal cords, literally, forgot how to work. You cleared your throat. 'What happened?' you asked again, and this time he heard you.

'She was shot protecting a child.' of course she was.

'Where?'

'At a house in-'

'Where was she shot on her body Steve.' Don't be like that Holly, you're lucky he called you.

'Yeah, sorry, long day. Chest.'

'Her vest?' your head was clearing enough to be able to ask a few basic details.

'It was a large caliber weapon Holly.' so useless.

'Shit. 'Let me call you back.' you said abruptly. You needed to process, fast and you couldn't do that holding the only lifeline you had to Toronto in your hands. You had too many questions and you were just going to keep asking them and there were more pressing matters. You knew enough to make a decision.

Turns out, you didn't need to process. By the time you took a deep breath you were half way out the building, leaving your boss some message about a family emergency and booking the first flight to Toronto.

As soon as it was done, you rang Steve. 'It's Holly'

'thank god-'

'listen' she cut him off. 'I'm due at Pearson at 2200hrs.'

'I'll have an officer pick you up.'

'Has her condition changed?'

'No. just get here.' bad

'I'm on my way.' she was pulling the phone away from her ear when she heard 'she never stopped loving you you know.' he said in a heartbreakingly sad whisper

'I know that now.'

'be sure Holly.' be sure you can be a cop's partner, be sure this is where you want to be, be sure your career is never more important than her again, be sure you know how much she really loves you and be sure you love her enough.

'I am.'

'see you in a few hours.'

The disjointed reality strikes you as the airport taxi gently stops millimeters from the curb. You shake your head, like waking up from a dream and suddenly confused about your surroundings. Then everything becomes crystal clear.

H: You were never suppose to come here Stewart. This was never meant to be your home, your town, your place. You found that and you left it for a fucking job.

S: Hey, remember me? Did you forget she was adopting a kid!

H: So what? I want kids?

S: So why did you leave then? You weren't willing to share her? You didn't love her enough? You hadn't had enough 'honeymoon' time?

H: Hey! She walked out on me!

S: Yep, and she came back.

H: Yeah, bloody long time later.

S: You knew what you were getting into with Gail, she made no bones about her relationship ineptitude and you started seeing someone way too soon and you know it. Gail hurt you, so you fucked up and then you fucked off.

'What if I'm too late?' she whispered into the nothingness.

End Notes: It seems there is some confusion regarding how the texts were sent. I apologize that this was not obvious. How I pictured it happening is Steve looking up Holly's contact in Gail's phone and typing out a message to send her and that in turn would have sent all the drafts that Gail had been keeping to herself. Because that's how my phone works. Hope this clarifies.