Content Info: This chapter is set in the direct aftermath of 3x08, and as such contains some discussion of trauma and suicide.
iv.
Julie is definitely a little drunk. She knows she must be because for the last half an hour she's been on the dance floor with Mary, and that is not a place that a sober Superintendent Dodson would ever find herself. Not in front of half a department's worth of junior officers, at any rate. But someone's filled the jukebox playlist with 70s and 80s hits, and every time they're about to take a breather another favourite comes on and keeps them there for just one more song.
When finally a tune comes on that they don't know, they take the opportunity for a break, lurching off the dance floor.
"Time for another shot?" Julie asks, as Mary catches her by the shoulder to steady herself.
"Absolutely!"
They sway their way over to the bar. "So," says Mary as they plant their elbows on it, looking at Julie with the kind of serious expression worn only by the very young or the very drunk, "if no one else is going to say it, I will."
"Of course you will," Julie says, levelling her gaze at her friend. Mary's even more renowned for her bluntness than Julie is. "What?" She arches a brow.
"This." Mary waves her hands around. "All of this. This retirement thing. It's a bad idea. Trauma response. She'll regret it."
Oh. Julie swallows. That. She nods and shakes her head all in the same gesture. "Maybe. I don't know." She's been trying not to think about it: the drinking, the lying, how and why she missed it or allowed herself to be taken in.
"Bollocks," Mary says, entirely too loudly. The people either side of them at the bar turn to look at her. "Of course you know. Or you have an opinion. You were there. And you and her, I mean..."
Julie leans in close, catching Mary's waving hand and pressing her mouth right up to other woman's ear. "Lady, if you don't stop talking right now, I am going to break your glorious doctor fingers." She articulates clearly, carefully, giving Mary's hand a squeeze. She doesn't mean it, of course, but it's enough to penetrate the alcohol-induced fog that's clouded Mary's brain.
"Ohhh," Mary's voice drops to a murmur as her face takes on a knowing expression. "Like that, is it?"
"Yes," Julie answers.
The mirth falls away from Mary as she finally realises that Julie isn't sharing her amusement. "Oh." She knows more about Gill and Julie's history than anyone else in this pub.
"Yeah," says Julie. "It's complicated. And maybe you're right, about this being a response. And maybe it won't make everything better. But that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision. I don't know. I don't feel like my opinion is even slightly objective, so it seems better not to have one."
It's going to be strange, even sad, to no longer have the job in common with Gill. They've been in it together for so long, sharing ambitions and stories, attending department functions and officer training, that the sudden loss of that feels a bit like grief. On the other hand, Gill won't have her reputation to be worried about anymore, but Julie's not sure if that isn't too little, too late. She sighs.
"What?" Mary asks, eyeing her.
"Nothing," Julie says, and Mary's eyebrows lift skeptically. "I'll tell you sometime when we're not so pissed. Speaking of, where's our next shot?" She raises her voice on the last, and the barman clocks her from where he's handing over two pints to another customer. As soon as they've paid, he moves over to her and Mary.
"What'll it be this time, ladies?"
"Something with gin," Julie says, thinking of a green bottle on a bedside table.
"Ooh!" Mary leans in. "I know one! Half gin and half blackberry brandy. Can you do that?"
"I surely can," the barman says, grinning. He turns to grab the necessary bottles off the shelf, pops two glasses on the bar and pours their drinks with a flourish. "And a house ale and a merlot?" he checks, then turns to get them when Julie nods.
Mary picks up her glass. "You know what they call this one?"
"What?" Julie responds, reaching for her own.
There's a twinkle in Mary's eye when she replies: "A 'devastating body rocker'."
Julie snorts, laughing helplessly. There's only one problem with being a cop - all of the friends she surrounds herself with are damn near omniscient. "You fucking bitch," she chuckles, raising the glass. "Cheers."
Mary smirks. "Cheers." She taps her glass against Julie's, then they both down their shots.
ooOOoo
Gill had tasted of gin that night.
It took Julie hours to get to the party. Activating the Red Centre always meant piles of paperwork, and when the reason was the abduction of a fellow officer and the end result a death in custody, then the person in charge had the pleasure of an endless interview with Karen Zalinski. By the time the evening was over, Julie had repeated every detail both on paper and verbally, justified every decision at least three different ways, and felt alternately naked and as though she were going to crawl out of her skin.
She needed to see Gill. All afternoon she'd watched that car on the highway, knowing Gill was alive and conscious only because it kept moving more inexorably toward danger. Julie had been in charge, allegedly, but nothing had felt less like control than directing a dozen armed officers around a car that held both her best friend and an unpredictable, traumatised woman wielding a knife. She'd seen the end, of course, Gill fragile and shaken on the edge of a cliff - a cliff that, for one awful moment, Julie had imagined Gill falling over the side of, disoriented and completely by accident, a horrible cosmic joke played by an unfeeling universe.
But no. Gill had survived, and with minimal intervention from the Red Centre, in the end. She was alive. Julie had seen it on the monitor, had wiped those tears of relief away before her team could see, before she descended into paperwork and interrogation hell, but she needed to know. Needed to reach out and touch her and reaffirm not just Gill's existence but her own - Gill was alive and Julie was human, not some panicking petty god watching from afar and cursing the unpredictability of giving people free will.
She registered almost nothing about the party. She said hello to Sammy, that much she was sure of, but by the time she reached the top of the stairs she couldn't remember if she'd just had a drink and stood shaking for half an hour or if she'd barely been inside five minutes.
There were murmured voices behind Gill's bedroom door. Julie's first sense was one of relief that Gill wasn't alone, quickly followed by a vague unease. Who was in there with her, and how much would be written all over Julie's face as soon as she opened the door? Julie felt rattled enough without baring herself to some friend of Gill's she hardly knew. She listened for a moment - the door was slightly ajar - and heard a voice that sounded very much like it belonged to Janet Scott.
Well. That was… Julie wasn't entirely sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but Janet at least would understand. Julie wouldn't have to feel strange about her obvious need in front of someone who had been there. Even so, she took a moment to compose herself properly before she knocked and opened the door. When she did, she discovered that Rachel Bailey was in the room too - both of them sitting on the edge of Gill's bed, all three looking like the survivors of a battle.
She was right at home here, then. "Evening, ladies," she greeted them as she stepped through the door. "You would not believe the day I've had."
Janet and Rachel turned toward her. A wry half-smile twisted Janet's mouth up, and Rachel looked like she usually did when in close quarters with Julie - equal parts wary and belligerent. She seemed as though she couldn't quite decide whether Julie was serious or not, and was ready to jump to Gill's defense if she decided it was necessary, chain-of-command and potential promotions be damned. But Gill - to whom Julie's eyes shifted as soon as she'd given the other two a cursory glance - laughed, lifting a hand in greeting.
"Hiya, Slap." Her fingers curled, beckoning Julie over.
Real. She was real - a bit battered, a bit teary and apparently a bit drunk, but real. And safe now. Julie's feet carried her over to the bed without a second thought, and she joined Rachel and Janet in perching there, taking the remaining space beside Gill at the top of the bed. As she sat, she couldn't help but reach for Gill, touching the back of her hand for just a moment before pulling away. Real, the both of them.
"Someone should go tell Sammy that the party's actually up here," Gill said with a tired smile.
"Mm," Julie murmured. "The lesbian's arrived and joined three other women in the bedroom. That'd get 'em up here." She glanced at Janet, who chuckled, and Rachel, who smiled but glanced down at the rings on Julie's hand, apparently confused, then returned her gaze to Gill. "All right?" she asked, and Gill nodded.
"I'll live," she said. "Which is more than I could say for sure a few times today, so." Her hand crept up toward her throat, where a reddish-purple bruise mottled her skin, then pulled away abruptly. "Sorry about the paperwork."
"Slap..." Julie whispered, but cut herself off. She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to say, but whatever it was, she wasn't going to say it with an audience.
All of them seemed to have lost their voices. Julie wasn't sure if it was the Superintendent Effect, or if the conversation had been winding down anyway, but the next few moments were silent. It was comradely rather than awkward, a collective sigh of relief that seemed complete now that Julie was here. All four of them had pulled together today, done everything they could, and together they'd managed to ensure Gill got out safe. Julie studied the duvet cover under her hand, thumb smoothing it idly, and felt the room breathe.
"Thank you," she said eventually, glancing up at Rachel and Janet, "both of you. For everything you did today."
"Just our jobs, ma'am," Rachel said, looking uncomfortable.
Julie nodded, conceding the point. She wasn't usually in the habit of thanking people for doing their jobs. "All the same, there was nothing routine about what I asked you do today, so."
Rachel nodded, and Janet glanced at Gill, smoothed her hands over her lap. "Well," she said, "I didn't actually say hello to Sammy, or tell him congratulations, so I should probably do that. You going to come and be introduced, gatecrasher?" She nudged Rachel.
"Yeah, okay," Rachel said, sliding off the bed. "You take it easy, boss."
"Mm," Janet murmured, glancing at Julie as she rose. "Try and convince her to take a few days off, won't you? She might listen to you." Janet glanced again at Gill, sharing a significant sort of look with her, then they slipped out the door and tugged it closed behind them.
"I hope you will," Julie heard herself saying, turning toward Gill as they were left alone. "Because I've begged off being on call for the weekend, so it'll make me look like a right arse if you go straight back to work."
Gill didn't respond, staring at her. When she did speak, it was to whisper: "I need a hug." Her voice was small and broken.
"Oh, Gill."
She lurched forward and Julie twisted further onto the bed, caught her and wrapped her up. Tugging her close, Julie felt Gill's hands fist in the back of her jacket, and Gill's head came to rest in the crook of her shoulder. It was an awkward embrace, both of their bodies twisted strangely, but neither of them seemed willing to let go. Julie's hand found the back of Gill's head and stroked her hair, and she felt Gill shaking against her - not crying but shaking, gently at first but then uncontrollably, as though she'd been holding it back all afternoon. Trying to be an untouchable rock, no doubt - totally fine and all ready for Sammy's party.
"Shh," Julie whispered, eyes prickling. "You're okay. You're here, you're alive, it's over." She found herself rocking, murmuring nonsense noises into Gill's hair and ignoring the hot tears that leaked unbidden from her eyes. Gill was here and so was she, alive and real and finally, finally able to actually do something. She curled her shoulders in, tried to enfold Gill. She'd always been larger, but Gill hadn't seemed as tiny as she did now for a very long time.
"I knew it was you," Gill whispered, eventually. Her voice was muffled against Julie's shirt. "When it was Janet on the phone. Knew you were there with me."
"I hoped you'd get to hear her voice," Julie replied. "And Helen trusted her."
"She…" Gill breathed, and her voice broke on a shudder. "I've never known someone who wanted to die before. Her eyes…"
"I know," Julie murmured, remembering. She had. An ex of hers had tried, once, and Julie remembered the awful hollow look she'd had when she failed. Julie, like Gill, had seen a lot of death, but it wasn't even close to the same as looking into the eyes of someone who wanted it so badly.
"I made such a terrible mistake," Gill choked, and now there were tears. Julie could feel the warm wet of them soaking through her shirt.
"It's not your fault," Julie whispered, gut twisting. God, that case. They'd disagreed so fundamentally on Helen Bartlett's culpability, Julie seeing a traumatised victim where Gill had seen something else - someone dishonest, out to save herself. They'd argued about it at the time, Julie furious with Gill for the fact that she couldn't see, that she hadn't been able to understand how deep a person's trauma could run. She'd had no frame of reference and so had been incapable of empathy, and at the time Julie had wished, in her frustration, that Gill wasn't so privileged and blind to suffering.
It felt like a terrible sort of irony now.
"I couldn't do anything," Gill said, and wriggled in Julie's arms like her skin was crawling. "She was, and the belt was, and I…" She tugged herself free of their embrace, pulling back and rolled her shoulders. Her skin, Julie noticed, had risen to gooseflesh, but she didn't get the chance to notice anything else because then Gill was kissing her.
Stunned, it took Julie a moment to respond, a long moment with Gill's lips crashed against hers before she managed to get a hand between them and pull away.
"Gill." Julie's hand gripped Gill's shoulder. She stared at her friend - eyes wild and dark, chest heaving, skin all prickles - and had no idea what was going on. "What are you doing?"
Gill's chin straightened. "Kissing you," she said, looking somehow defiant.
"Why?" Julie asked. It didn't seem like quite the time for kissing.
"Because I need…" Gill began, then broke off, looking frustrated and desperate. She pressed forward again, as though that was enough for another kiss, but Julie held her back.
"Gill," Julie said again, short and adamant, and watched as it had the effect she wanted. Gill sat back, seemed to anchor herself. "Take a breath," Julie said, and Gill did.
When Julie was satisfied that Gill wasn't about to attack her again, she released her shoulder. Dropping her hand, Julie caught Gill's wrist instead, circling it gently and letting her palm rest against Gill's.
"It's all right," she said. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. But you can't just be kissing me like that, not tonight anyway." Julie offered a small smile, searching for the right words. "You've been through a lot today, seen a lot. And you've been drinking. I'm..." She hesitated, uncertain of herself and her boundaries, but deciding that they'd built up enough trust over the years for her to make Gill an open offer. "I'm here for you, whatever you need, but I'm going to need you to articulate it clearly so that I know you've thought about it, and so that I don't make any mistakes assuming."
Gill nodded, sat there on the bed looking small and shaken. The grey cardigan she'd thrown on over her party dress had fallen down off one shoulder, and the dress itself was twisted around her. She didn't seem to notice any of it.
"I feel like I'm only half here," she said, after a time, voice quiet and distant, eyes unfocused. "Like part of me went with her after all." She flexed her fingers up to touch Julie's wrist. "Hand feels real. You feel real, but everything else is sort of...blurry at the edges. Far away. I need…" Gill's breath rattled in and out of her. "I felt so out of control today, even though I was driving. I wonder what being kidnapped must feel like; being grabbed and bound, I mean. To be completely powerless but know there's nothing you can do until someone cuts the ropes. It was a strange sort of thing, driving but not being allowed to stop. In control but not. Think I'll have nightmares about that." She shuddered, looked up at Julie, seemed to focus herself again. "I need to take my body back, need to feel like I'm here again, inside my own skin. Need to be touched. Will you…?"
"All right," Julie heard herself say, even though it probably wasn't the best idea in the world.
They hadn't, not since that night after Dave went. Even in the wake of Gill's affection afterwards, Julie had done exactly what she'd said she would do: gone home. In the aftermath, though, she had found herself wondering if Gill had meant what she'd said; even hoping that, given time, she might come back and say it again. She hadn't, though. She'd gone a few years with no romantic life to speak of, raising her son and getting to know herself again, and then she'd finally had her rebound fling with the toy boy from the NPIA. Julie had been happy for her when she'd heard about it - even though her hearing about it had been secondhand - but she'd been mildly disappointed as well. Not enough to make a fuss - she wasn't going to hold Gill to some affectionate words spoken post-orgasm only a fortnight after her separation, especially not when 'just tonight' had been Julie's caveat in the first place - but she had hoped that they might have that conversation if they ever ended up in bed together again. Tonight, though, was clearly not the right time for that.
But Julie couldn't say no to Gill's need. "C'm'ere, then," she said, tugging on Gill's wrist.
This time, when Gill kissed her, Julie didn't pull away. Gill's lips were salty but her mouth tasted of gin, and Julie's hand slipped up Gill's arm as they kissed, releasing her wrist to trail fingertips lightly up her forearm. It was all she could do bar leaning in - her right arm was holding her up and her position on the bed was still awkward enough that she wasn't sure she wouldn't fall over if she reached out with it. Instead, she pressed herself forward, stretching up, forcing Gill to cant her head back to keep in contact. It was a long kiss, gentle and exploratory, the kind that felt like a negotiation. Gill was shaky at first, nervous and needy, but when Julie took charge she seemed to relax. This, Julie supposed, was an articulation of its own.
Gill's eyelashes fluttered when they finally broke for air. She did not completely open her eyes. "Touch me," she whispered, hanging there with her head tipped back.
"Going to have to move first," Julie murmured, stroking Gill's wrist.
She shed her jacket, kicked off her shoes, hung the former from the corner of the bedside table and hoped it would stay there. "C'me'ere," she said again, rolling onto her side once she'd rearranged herself into a more comfortable position and opening her arms for Gill. Gill came to her, settling in close, and Julie cupped her cheek with one hand and kissed her again, thumb stroking the underside of her chin.
"All right?" Julie asked, when she broke away, searching Gill's eyes as her thumb moved lower, down in the direction of Gill's throat. "How's your neck?" She stopped short of touching it.
"I…" Gill whispered, and shivered. "Yeah, hurts a bit. Feels...strange. Maybe don't touch me there just yet."
"Okay," Julie replied, hand stilling. "Any other no-go zones?"
"No," Gill said, catching Julie's hand and guiding it down to her breast. "Just touch me. And kiss me some more. Please."
Julie did, spreading her palm out where Gill had laid it and cupping Gill's breast in her hand. The dress she wore was thick and silky, slippery under Julie's touch as she smoothed her thumb over it to find Gill's nipple through the fabric. Gill murmured her approval as Julie leaned forward to kiss her again.
Julie took her time, sliding her hand over Gill's hip and side, stroking her belly, curling around her to caress her back. In the absence of a throat to kiss she moved her mouth down along Gill's jawline, up to her temples, kissed her forehead and her eyelids and the tip of her nose. Gill didn't respond much at first, except to make encouraging noises, but as Julie's hands repeated their motions she seemed to revive, arching into the touches as a blush rose on her cheeks and chest. It felt like a resuscitation, and it answered a need in Julie as well, filled her up with relief and longing. She could feel Gill's heart beating and she'd never needed anything more.
"How's that?" Julie asked, kissing the spot just below Gill's ear. "You with me?" It occurred to her that this might be all Gill wanted, some snogging and a bit of heavy petting to bring her back. She'd said 'touch me', after all, not 'fuck me'.
Gill opened her eyes. "I am," she murmured. "More every minute." She slipped her own hand onto Julie's waist and tugged at the shirt tucked into her trousers. "Want to feel your skin, though. Take these off and undress me."
Well, that was harder to misinterpret. Julie complied, sitting up so she could unbutton and shrug out of her shirt, shed her bra. She unbuckled her belt and moved to the edge of the bed to shimmy her pants off. It felt a little exposing, taking her clothes off while Gill was still fully dressed, and while the pounding bass of some song under the floorboards reminded her of the dozens of people downstairs and the lack of lock on Gill's bedroom door. But it was a mild discomfort, really, and it far better for Julie to feel vulnerable in this moment than Gill.
Gill didn't seem to mind Julie's nakedness at all. She'd pushed herself up as Julie undressed, and now her fingers found Julie's back, drawing a hot little trail from beneath her shoulder blade to the curve of her backside. The touch sent a spark racing after it that curled up warmly inside Julie, and when she turned back to undress Gill she felt it tingling in her fingers.
The cardigan went quickly, slipped off and dropped off the side of bed, and with it gone Julie kissed a bared shoulder, slipping a hand around Gill's back to unzip her dress, then tugging its strap down with her teeth. Julie smiled as she lifted her head, sliding two fingers across the back of Gill's opposite shoulder to pull the other strap down in a more conventional way, and she studied Gill's face again as her fingers traced circles on the bare skin she'd exposed - there was no bra under that thick fabric. Gill met her gaze, smiled back at her, fragile but present.
"I think we should get under the covers," Julie said, letting her touch answer Gill's by trailing down her bare back. "Just in case one of Sammy's mates thinks he's stumbling into the bathroom."
Gill blinked as though she'd forgotten there was a party going on downstairs, as though she'd forgotten anything else existed. "That probably would… Yeah," she said, and let out a little breath of laughter.
Julie helped Gill up, turned the duvet back and slipped beneath it while Gill shimmied out of her dress and knickers. Holding the covers aloft, she waited until Gill had joined her beneath them before settling the duvet down. Gill paused as she made herself comfortable, took a long look at Julie, then reached for the lamp and very deliberately turned the lights out.
"It's you," Gill said, after they'd wriggled down in the dark.
"It's me," Julie replied, threading her fingers into Gill's hair and kissing her.
In the dark there was nothing but feeling. Once her eyes adjusted, Julie could make out the dim outline of Gill's face, her eyes an occasional gleam in the shadows, but everything else was left to touch. Their legs tangled together, Julie sliding her calf against Gill's, wrapping her up and holding her with long legs. Her hands explored again, re-travelling the places she had before in the absence of clothes, feeling her way along the silky-soft skin of breast and belly and down to cup a hip, sliding her hand down the outside of thigh and feeling the light tickle of hair against her palm. She shifted under the sheets, rolling on top of Gill and letting a tent form above her as she shimmied down, mouth seeking, sightless. She found a shoulder to kiss, a nipple to tongue, the inside of an elbow to nibble, and when Gill reached for her, a wrist and five lovely fingers to suck. She could feel Gill twitching, could feel her skin radiating heat, could hear her but only dimly, her voice muffled by the covers and blended in with the background noise of the music downstairs. It felt illicit somehow, like this, secret and thrilling, and as she kissed her way across Gill's belly she almost forgot what had brought them here, full of heat and need of her own.
She remembered in time, caught herself before she got too carried away, kissing her way back up Gill's body again until her head popped out above the covers. She hovered over Gill, sought out the shape of her face in the gloom, let her fingers trail up the inside of a thigh but paused at the apex, tracing a pattern on the soft, damp skin.
"All right?" she whispered. "Is this…?"
The exasperated sigh she got in response was pure Gill. She felt fingers tangle into her hair. "Will you stop asking permission?" Gill whispered, sharp. "Stop second-guessing. I trust you, Julie. Don't hold back." And she pulled Julie down for another kiss, hot and demanding.
It was like opening the floodgates. That word meant a lot, coming from Gill. Julie knew it in her bones, the trust they had in each other, but to hear Gill say it - Gill, who'd had her trust betrayed dozens of times over by the man she married, who carried suspicion around with her in her pocket every day, saw the culpability in everyone - was another thing entirely. Julie was suddenly desperate to live up to it, kissed Gill back with that same demanding heat, hand shifting sideways to press her palm into Gill's cunt.
Julie felt Gill arch beneath her, ground her hand down, swallowing Gill's moans as she worked her fingers, spreading Gill's wet until her palm was slick with it. Their kiss broke on Gill's whimper as her head arched back, and Julie found the next bit of available skin and fixed her mouth there, sucking at the line of Gill's jaw. Her hand ground into Gill, but it didn't feel enough, not tonight. Not for what she wanted, not for what Gill had asked for. Shifting, Julie pulled her hand away, curling it around one of Gill's thighs instead and planting a knee between them, leaning forward and pulling Gill up to meet her. She found that slick heat with her own thigh and pressed into it, stretching herself out above Gill and thrusting forward.
In the dark, everything blurred into sensation. Julie's mouth moved along Gill's jaw, her free hand curled around the back of a shoulder. Her fingers gripped the back of Gill's thigh as she moved, holding fast. Gill's heat was everywhere, their skin pressed close; Julie felt their breasts flatten against each other, nipples rubbing. Gill's breath came fast and shallow but she wriggled a hand between them, fingers seeking out Julie's clit and pressing against it, letting Julie's momentum do the work. Julie's thighs burned with effort, but with Gill's fingers there she pushed forward greedily, grinding on them even as she drove herself against Gill.
Julie felt Gill's thighs clench around hers, felt her pushing back as she started to twitch. Julie moved faster, groaning against Gill's skin as the friction brought her closer as well, as her head spun away and left her with nothing but motion. She felt Gill break with a whimper and hitching breath, pushed harder, aching and desperate. It didn't take her long with the sound of Gill's climax in her ears, her fingers twitching with it, jerking against Julie's clit. Julie shuddered, spun, giving a few final thrusts against Gill's hand before she collapsed exhausted, her head dropping into the crook of Gill's shoulder.
They were still for a long time, neither moving, both recovering their breath. When Julie stirred, it was only to pull her arm up and plant her elbow on the bed, letting it take some of her weight so Gill didn't have to. She shifted her chin - Gill's necklace was digging into her cheek - and only realised as she did that that was because her face had been pressed up against the no-go zone of Gill's throat.
"Sorry," she whispered, moving it away. "Lost my head."
"Hm?" Gill murmured, then made a noise of understanding. "It's actually okay, I think? Would you... Would you kiss it?"
"Mm," Julie purred, "gladly." She slipped her fingers into Gill's hair, gently tugged her head back, then pressed the lightest of kisses against her neck. When there was no shudder or protest, she dropped another, continuing until she'd left a ring of them right around Gill's throat. "All better?" she asked, lifting her head.
Gill murmured her approval. "They should make you a doctor. A specialist in kissing it better."
Julie chuckled, finally mustering the energy to shift her weight properly, catching Gill's waist as she rolled onto her side and pulling her along. "Think I'd have a bit of a limited list of potential patients," she said, smiling in the dark.
"Exclusive," Gill countered, sliding a hand onto Julie's hip. Her thumb stroked idly back and forth there. After a moment, she spoke again. "Thank you for this. For tonight. For listening to me."
"How do you feel now?" Julie asked, fingers grazing Gill's side again.
"Present," Gill answered, "back in control. For now, anyway."
"Good," Julie replied, relieved it had worked and glad that Gill recognised that it might not be permanent.
"Exhausted, too," Gill added. Her voice took on a hint of need again when she asked: "Will you stay?"
"Of course," Julie said, smiling again. "Got to be somewhere Zalinski can't hunt me down and make me sign another form." Gill laughed, and Julie tapped her hip. "Come on, we should sleep. Want to be my little spoon?"
"Mm, yes," Gill replied. "Any time." She shifted, and they lost contact for a moment as they both made themselves more comfortable, Julie pulling a pillow beneath her head and Gill straightening the covers over both of them. A moment later, though, Gill curled back in against Julie's body, and Julie wrapped an arm around her middle and kissed her shoulder.
"I'm here," Gill whispered, a mantra in the dark, "and so are you."
"You're here," Julie affirmed, holding her close. "And so am I." She closed her eyes and let the world vanish, leaving everything behind except the feel of Gill's skin against hers, both of them warm and real.
oOo
They slept soundly until just before sunrise, when Julie woke to Gill thrashing in the sheets. "I can't," she was saying, breathless and panicked, kicking at the covers. "Get it off me!"
"Gill," Julie hissed, reaching for her shoulder to give her a shake. "Gill, wake up."
As soon as Julie touched her she shuddered awake, eyes flying open. She was breathing hard, eyes frightened and disoriented, so Julie held onto her shoulder and whispered to her.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. You were dreaming. You're safe in your bed. I'm here, you're okay, you're safe." She traced a thumb over Gill's shoulder, lay there watching her in the grey dawn light as her eyes took on focus and her breathing slowed. "You're okay," she repeated, once Gill's senses seemed to have returned. "You back with me?"
"Mmf," Gill groaned, reaching up with one hand to scrub at her eye. "Yeah. That was…" She shuddered, and Julie could feel her skin had risen to gooseflesh again.
"C'm'ere," she said, offering her arms once more. They'd slipped apart in sleep, but now Gill shifted gratefully and snuggled up against her again. Julie smoothed Gill's hair, rubbed her shoulder, slid an arm around her middle to hold her close. "You're okay," she whispered again.
"Don't want to go back to sleep," Gill murmured, clutching at Julie's arm. "Not yet. It's all waiting there, I feel it. Talk to me?"
"About what?" Julie asked, thumb stroking Gill's belly.
"Anything," Gill whispered. "Not work. Tell me about horses, or what you got up to at Hogwarts, or wherever. Just tell me a story."
"Hmm," Julie murmured, kissing Gill's shoulder to buy herself time, wracking her brain for an anecdote Gill didn't already know. School was a good topic, one she didn't talk about much, even to Gill. There weren't many police who'd grown up with families wealthy enough to send them to private school, so the fact that Julie had attended one - which Gill insisted upon calling by everything other than its real name, always referring to it as Hogwarts or St Trinian's, Malory Towers or The Chalet School - was something she tended to keep close to her chest. There were definitely tales she had never told Gill, but of course, put on the spot, she couldn't think of a single one.
"I was a terrible student," she said, talking anyway, just filling the silence with her voice. "I didn't perform badly because I had a pretty good memory for dates and facts, but I just didn't care about most of it, so I was lazy, and I had a smart mouth too."
"You?" Gill asked, a smile in her voice. "I can't imagine."
Julie chuckled and gave Gill a squeeze. "Oh, shush. I wasn't awful, they'd never have stood for it - my parents or the school - so if you've got any illusions that I blew up toilets or set my teachers on fire you're going to be sorely disappointed. Mainly I just squandered my parents' money by folding my worksheets into paper horses and writing guitar chords in the back of my maths book. And I bunked off a lot. I used to skip lessons all the time, and I usually got away with it. Tall girl in a posh uniform catching the train into the city; people thought I was a senior. There was a little cafe in the centre of town I liked to go to. People had meetings there - political activism and feminist gatherings and all sorts of things. I'd stuff my blazer in my bag and untuck my shirt and act like that made it less obvious where I came from. I met my first girlfriend there, actually. I was sixteen and she was nineteen, which seemed so grown up to me then. She worked there; she was doing sociology at Manchester University with a focus on women's studies. She had a killer mullet and she didn't shave anything, and she'd have a spliff out the back on her break and tell me about patriarchal oppression. She was a walking cliche. I adored her." Julie smiled, remembering.
Gill's voice was drowsy when she replied. "Did you sleep with her?"
"Once," Julie answered, lowering her voice because it sounded like Gill was headed toward sleep again. "She had a little flat that she shared with four other students. They all seemed gloriously bohemian to me, though actually I don't think it was a bad place at all. She did sleep on a matress on the floor, though, which felt very different. Like the opposite of glamorous, but exactly what I wanted, somehow. I don't know if that even makes sense, but for a lot of years I was all about things that felt real, in the most pretentious way possible." This storytelling jaunt had meandered in a direction Julie hadn't expected, but she went with it. It was warm here with her arms around Gill, felt safe for her as well.
She finished the story. "It only happened once because she found out how old I was a few weeks after. She'd assumed I was a senior as well, and I never corrected her. She wasn't too impressed when I let slip that I was going for my O Levels and not my A's. Not one of my proudest moments, although I didn't mislead her into doing anything illegal, so I don't think it was unforgivable..."
Julie trailed off into silence and Gill didn't answer. Her breathing was steady again and her heart-rate at rest, so Julie thought she must have fallen back to sleep. Smiling, Julie closed her eyes, and her body, remembering that she was most definitely not a morning person, soon dragged her into drowsiness as well.
She was drifting somewhere between wakefulness and sleep when Gill spoke again. "Julie?" She sounded as dozy as Julie felt.
"Mm?" Julie managed in response.
"I want to be your girlfriend." It was spoken in a murmur, barely audible, and Julie's mind swelled with the size of it but couldn't cope in its sleepy state. She knew there were things, all sorts of feelings, good ones and bad ones, thoughts about timing and states of mind, but as it was all of it felt like a kind of soup in the brain, and Julie couldn't manage anything except the most basic response.
"Okay," she whispered.
Author's Note: I would like to give credit to Aubry for some of the things included in this chapter. Julie's line about her terrible day was lifted almost verbatim from a comment Aubry made in a chat somewhere - it was something that struck me as absolutely perfect when I first heard it, and I couldn't help but include it in this fic. Also, the idea of Gill wanting to reclaim her body in the aftermath of her abduction was largely inspired by Aubry's own post-3x08 fic. My thanks to her for granting me permission to steal her ideas for her gift fic :)