If you read this before, it was called "Feelings."
I renamed it, giving chapter one the title 'Nothing' and this is 'Regret.' It's a little short. Starting next chapter is the meat and future and you'll see where this is headed.
This IS a darker fic. The angst label is accurate. There is anguish. There is drama. There will be Golly.
She felt entirely regretful.
That was the problem.
It was the eyes that started her problem. They turned Holly right into babble mode because they were so damn blue. The eyes were bright blue, challenging, sharp, and a little sad. Not sad about a dead guy, just sad. Like life had been kicking her around. And then she looked at the face and the skin and the hair and she was a goner.
This wasn't the first time Holly had seen the gorgeous woman around. You didn't look like Officer Peck and not get noticed, after all. About her height, bottle blonde, pale skin, amazing lips- bad Holly. Bad. No lusting after straight girls again.
And it was terribly inappropriate to have a crush like that on a new friend, but Holly knew she did.
It was worse to have kissed the friend and torpedoed any chance of going further than being friends. Hell, Holly had been sure that she'd ruined a new friendship. But she didn't know what else to do after Gail had asked all those awkward questions. They were the same sort of stupid questions she'd asked when she was feeling out this whole idea of, perhaps, being a lesbian.
As much as Holly wanted to blame the champagne or the wedding mood, the fact was she'd been attracted to Gail from the very moment she saw her. That Gail had talked to her that day in the woods was, as far as she cared, the best thing ever. Finally she had a reason to chat with Gail and spent much of that afternoon prising information out of her. Flirting.
Yes, fine, she had been flirting with Gail all day in her lab. Over a dead body. Holly was not telling Lisa that. Ever.
And she flirted at the wedding and the batting cages. She didn't flirt the time she picked a burned and drug addled Gail from the hospital. That was the moment Holly realized she was in deep. She had been so scared and worried about Gail that night. Gail had looked so tired and sad and torn up about something other than the injury.
They'd stayed up half the night, Gail working off the dredges of the drugs in her system and feeling uncharacteristically chatty about herself. And Holly wanted to listen. So she heard all about Nick and the cheating and then his cheating and Andy being a friend only not, and how it had all come to a head that day.
It sounded horrible.
Eventually Gail wound down, exhaustion creeping into her bones, and she let Holly show her to the guest room. Their friendship changed at that point. After the burn, they talked a lot more about how they felt about things, though not each other. They spent some nights talking on the couch, watching bad movies, or texting each other about their days, or calling to talk as they each lay in their own bed, alone.
Holly had never had a girl friend before, not like that, and it seemed strange to have one now. Stranger to have it be someone she had a crush on. Stranger that Gail seemed to ignore the fact that Holly had kissed her once. Strangest of all when Gail got so angry at the Penny, seeing Holly on a stupid set up date.
If looks could kill, Holly's date would have been dead ten times over. The date went nowhere because the whole time, Holly was feeling guilty about even being on a date. But hadn't Gail gone out? Well. No. Actually. She hadn't. There had been the guy with the fake British accent (Wentworth? Winston? something…) but after that she started ditching the dates to hang out with Holly.
Really, Holly should have seen it coming.
And then, finally then, they had kissed.
Gail's lips had been everything Holly dreamed about.
Everything escalated so quickly after that, though. The next day Gail was cutting off her hair in Holly's bathroom and they were kissing and in Holly's bedroom moving way, way too fast. Holly still wasn't sure how she managed to not pull Gail's wet clothes off and keep touching her, but somehow she did. Somehow she found the wherewithal to hold back and to promise Gail they would, but later.
Impatient Gail had groaned at that, complaining that she never waited long with men, and Holly insisted that they would. She sometimes regretted that too, because it was almost two weeks later, a week of kissing and touching, and an increasing familiarity with the contents of her nightstand's top drawer, that they waited. Gail's division was understaffed and she was just exhausted.
But then, finally, they'd been in the same, not too tired, place at the same time, and it had been wonderful. A little awkward, to be expected from someone's first time with a woman, but Gail was more than enthused. There was less fumbling around than Holly had hoped, though they did try and take things a little slow. First times with new lovers was always a bit weird, and Holly always felt that you had to have a sense of humor and play if things were going to work out.
Certainly, Gail had humor, play, and compatibility. She paid attention, she very much wanted the same thing Holly did, and she had no problem at all with asking for and taking direction. It wasn't long before they found their own pace and comfort with sex, a good balance with a promise of things to come.
Basking in the afterglow, Holly learned that while Gail wasn't much of a cuddler or a chatter, she did like to keep touching people. The soothing caress of Gail's hand on her arm and shoulder eased her into sleep. When she woke up, Gail was still there, asleep with a smile on her face and a hand still touching Holly, as if just making sure she was there.
They only got a month of it. Really only three weeks if Holly counted the week where they weren't having sex but wanted to. Four passionate weeks. Four weeks with their hearts and hands on fire, craving each other, carving out time for each other, and that was something Holly would never regret. Four amazing weeks that burned into her heart. Gail and her dark sense of humor, her disdain for her world, and her snappy sarcasm that she wielded like a weapon.
Holly had never thought it would be aimed at her.
She didn't even get the chance to tell Gail, or her friends, about the job offer before it was all blown to hell.
It was, in part, Lisa's fault. "Look, I get it. You want something that's uncomplicated and simple."
That didn't describe Gail at all, but Holly didn't want to really get into it. "I'm having fun. Don't worry about it."
Lisa glanced over Holly's shoulder and shook her head. "Okay, well, have your fun, but, I mean, get out before she gets hurt."
"No one's gonna get hurt."
But then Lisa gave her a look. The look. The look that said someone had just shoved a foot in a mouth. "Well, we'll see."
Shit. Holly turned at saw the same face on Gail that she'd seen in the hospital with the burn. That sad, hurt, face. And then it closed off. "Excuse me." Gail was turning and heading to the door, grabbing her jacket on the fly and letting Holly know exactly what she felt of the situation, what she felt of Lisa, and just how angry the words had made her. And then Gail capped it off with a sneer. "Don't look so upset. We're just having fun, right?"
Holly followed her to the door, but not was clear Gail was not about to listen. She didn't listen to (or at least respond to) phone calls or texts either. Damn it. How could someone apologize if the other person wouldn't listen? And the longer it went on, the angrier Holly got. She liked Gail. A lot. She was funny, sexy, smart, and really so much Holly's kind of person.
But she wasn't kidding that she was like a cat. That stupid emergency situation wasn't because she hated men but really it was just because she hated people. She didn't trust them. And now Holly was, apparently, one of those people who just kicked her. It wasn't true. It wasn't right at all. But you couldn't have a relationship if someone was going to abandon the tree. Whatever.
So instead of asking Gail what she thought about the job offer, what she thought about her new girlfriend leaving Toronto, Holly was left to think about it on her own.
The real problem wasn't how much she regretted introducing Gail to Lisa. The two were far too similar. The real problem was that she wanted two apparently diametrically opposed things. She wanted Gail and she wanted this job. In the echoing silence left by Gail's departure, Holly made the only reasonable, rational, choice. She took the job offer.
And then Gail wanted to talk.
Damn it! What had she possibly done to piss off the universe this much!? Had she been Jack the Ripper in a past life? She didn't want to have to talk to Gail about this. She didn't want to try reopening that door knowing that she was leaving, so she lied.
"Gail, I'm seeing someone."
Gail's face fell. No. Her face crumbled. It was that face again she'd seen in the hospital when Gail was hopped up on painkillers. It was the face that gave Holly a glimpse of the amount of pain Gail lived with every single day. She wanted to take the words back. She wanted to rewind time all the way back to the Penny and follow Gail home and drag it out of her. Whatever it was that was killing her.
And Gail sucked it all back in, said okay, and chased after Oliver Shaw's daughter, screaming the name into the halls. Holly did not envy that child. When she realized that Gail had forgotten the thumb, she scowled. Crap. She was going to have to have someone deliver it…
Which was why Holly could not have explained why she ended up at Fifteen Division, thumb in bag in hand. It cut her just to look at Gail. She didn't know what to expect when she found Gail either, but a confession of how Holly was the most wonderful person whom she'd ever met was not it. It was literally all she could do not to cry.
"Goodnight Gail," she said thickly and turned. If she stayed. If she looked back, she'd crumble. She couldn't. She was leaving. There was no point to break her heart over and over again.
Love was a funny thing.
One month of dating Gail. One month of no Gail. One month of regretting all of it and none of it at the same time. And then she gave in and waylaid Gail. She had to know if there was a chance or not. Her brain short circuited a little. That was the only explanation she had as to why she pulled Gail into an interrogation room and basically mauled her.
Except… Except Gail was there too. It was nothing like the first time they kissed and yet it was everything. It was more when Holly said she 'broke up' with her imaginary girlfriend and Gail was all in.
None of it worked out.
When they finally sat down to talk about 'things' and Holly found out Gail was going to try and adopt a kid, and Gail found out Holly was moving, it went badly. Really badly. There was shouting and arguments and finally, finally, silence.
This was it. It was real. It was raw. It was painful. They'd made a mess of it all. Sitting in Holly's living room, they looked at their hands, their feet, anything but each other, and were at sea.
"What are we now?" Gail's voice was soft and sad.
"Ex girlfriends," winced Holly, unable to find another way to call it.
Gail exhaled something that was probably a 'yeah.' Then she looked up. "I'm friends with my ex-boyfriends."
Holly laughed. "No you're not. You tolerate Chris and you terrorize Nick."
"It's good for Nick," muttered Gail.
But Holly understood the meaning. "I don't know if I can, Gail. Be friends."
She braced herself for an explosion that didn't come. Gail just nodded. "It cuts at you," she whispered.
That was the right description. "Would you come? If there wasn't Sophie?"
Taking a deep breath, Gail shook her head. "Move across the continent for a maybe?"
It was a fair comment. Holly nodded. "I want to try."
"I can't rip out my life to try that, Holly, I just … I can't." Gail, scarred and damaged and beaten down in love Gail, wouldn't risk that. And Holly couldn't blame her.
"So this is it," realized Holly with growing despair.
Gail nodded. "You're right. I just — God." She closed her eyes, looking almost haunted. She'd never seen Gail look so hollow before. Looking away, Holly struggled not to cry. "I'm sorry," breathed Gail, finally.
She hadn't expected Gail to say that first. "So am I." This was all as much her fault as Gail's and she knew it. "I'll miss you."
"Well, I'm awesome," said Gail, flippantly. She was trying so hard for her normal brand of sarcasm and humor. With those sad, empty, eyes, Gail picked up her coat. "Goodbye, Holly."
Not goodnight. Goodbye. Farewell. The end.
Alone in her apartment filled with boxes and half packed suitcases, Holly cried herself into a hazy stupor. She dragged herself to bed, trying to put a name to the anguish she felt. It wasn't something she was familiar with, but as the reality sunk in that she and Gail were through, she found its name.
Loss.
It was too late to fix it. It was over.
This is not the end of the fic. It will have a Golly ending. There are just a few more shades to work through.