Thank you so much for your kind reviews. So this is actually part 1 of chapter 3. I had to split it because I wanted to get a part up while I had a good connection and it was also super long so it kind of made sense. I know it's pretty depressing right no but there will be a lot of lighter moments in chapters to come. I hope you'll stick with me as I explore this story and please leave a review if you want to, I'd love to hear your comments :)
iii. part 1
"Oh crap is that the time?" Gail caught sight of the clock on the dashboard and cursed.
"What?" Chris asked, Gail's uncharacteristically panicked voice pulling his focus from her phone.
"Can you drop me at the hospital? Oliver knows I'm going to be late back," Gail asked, bracing herself for the questions she knew would inevitably come her way now.
"The hospital? Is everything okay?" Chris babbled, putting his phone away and turning to focus his full attention on Gail.
"Everything's fine Chris, it's just a checkup." Gail was being deliberately evasive, but she knew that Chris' concern wasn't unfounded. Though she had tried her hardest to act normal at home with Holly an effect of that was that she had been much more hostile at work. And Chris hadn't failed to notice how when she wasn't snapping at someone, Gail had been staring off into the distance, biting her lip the way she did when she was worried about something.
"Are you sure? I'm your friend Gail I-"
"I'm sure you'd love to hear all about my visit with the gynaecologist please remind me to give you a detailed breakdown when I get back," Gail snapped. Chris' eyes widened at Gail's outburst and the blonde immediately felt bad for lying to him. But she'd promised Holly that she wouldn't say anything to anyone until they had any news.
"I'm sorry I asked," Chris threw his hands up in frustration and then started the car. They drove in an uncomfortable silence until Chris spoke again.
"I'm am sorry Gail, it's you've just been weird all week and suddenly you have a hospital appointment and-"
"I've been pulling overtime to catch up on paperwork and I have a three month who still won't sleep through the night of course I'm acting weird. Could you cut me a little slack?" Gail cut him off again, only because she couldn't bear to listen to his earnest ramblings.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop saying sorry and just drive," Gail said, though her tone was soft enough to let Chris know that they weren't fighting any more.
Chris pulled into the car park in front of the main entrance and turned to Gail. "You want me to come back and pick you up when you're done?"
"No I'll be okay,"
"Gail, I actually don't want to hear about your appointment okay?" He smirked.
Gail hit him on the shoulder as she got out of the car, "shut up Diaz."
Gail waited until the squad car had pulled away before she entered the hospital. She turned off her radio and switched her phone to silent. The last thing she needed was distractions. She pressed the button for the elevator and glanced around nervously. She was suddenly self conscious about being here in her uniform. Usually her uniform and gun made her feel safe, protected but Gail realised with a sad shake of her head that they were of no use here. She got off on the sixth floor where Holly's doctor's office was and scanned the waiting room for her wife.
She spotted Holly straight away. The brunette was standing in the far corner pretending to read a pamphlet. Gail knew that she wasn't really reading it because the adorable tongue-out expression the brunette usually had when she was concentrating was nowhere to be seen. Instead Holly's lips were pressed tightly together, her worry evident to Gail though the act probably would have fooled anyone else.
"Hey baby," Gail said softly, as she placed her hand on Holly's shoulder.
Holly silently replaced the pamphlet back into the rack and turned to face Gail. The expression on her face ransomed unchanged but now Gail was closer she could see the fear in Holly's brown eyes and it made her want to grab Holly and get as far away from this place as possible.
"Hey," Holly whispered, before she pressed herself into Gail's chest, burying her face in Gail's neck. Gail could do nothing put wrap her arms around Holly and run her fingers through her soft brown hair. There were no words she could say, nothing that would placate the weeks' worth of worry and apprehension that she felt in Holly carrying in her tense shoulders.
"Sorry I'm late, I had Diaz drop me off and you know what he's like," Gail apologise and she felt Gail go even stiffer in her arms.
"What'd you tell him?" Holly asked, her voice slightly muffled by Gail's uniform shirt.
"That I was going to the gynaecologist, you know I didn't think it would work as well on him as it did on Oliver considering that we used to date and all but he dropped the subject pretty quickly."
Gail felt a small puff of hot air on her shoulder as Holly chuckled.
"Men are so easy to freak out," Holly said, pulling back from Gail's shoulder. Gail loosened her grip on Holly but she kept a hold of the brunettes elbows. She didn't believe for one second the smile on Holly's face but she played along with it. Whatever Holly needed right now was Gail's priority.
"Well then you should have seen Oliver, I swear he looked about ready to run for the hills," Gail smiled, but she knew Holly could see through it just as much as Gail could see through hers.
"Holly Stewart," a sugary voice cut through the the dim hubbub of voices in the waiting room and Gail turned her head to see a chipper young nurse dressed in pale pink scrubs clutching at a clipboard. She reminded Gail of Chloe.
Holly made no attempt to move though Gail knew she had heard the nurse. Gail moved her hand from Holly's elbow to grasp her fingers and gave them a tight squeeze.
"Come on, let's go get some answers," Gail said softly, coaxing Holly to walk with her towards the nurse who had now repeated Holly's name 3 times.
"Holly Stewart?" The nurse asked, as Gail and Holly came to a stop in front of her. Gail just simply nodded on Holly's behalf.
"If you'd like to follow me, Dr. Phillips is ready for you now."
They walked wordlessly down the olive green corridor and Gail couldn't help but think about what an ugly colour it was. She glanced over at Holly but she had her gaze fixed forward, her fingers still wrapped tightly in Gail's own. When they finally came to a stop outside the doctor's office, the nurse told then to 'go right on in' with a too bright smile that made Gail grind her teeth in frustration. Didn't she know why they were here? Or was being overly nice her way of trying to help? Either way, it was making Gail angry and it was a relief when she went bouncing off back down the corridor.
Holly raised her hand, Gail presumed to give a courtesy knock but she froze before her knuckles touched the wood. Holly extricated her other hand from Gail's and took a deep breath, straightened her blouse, ran her fingers through her hair and pushed her glasses up her nose. All things that Holly did, Gail knew from years of seeing the brunette prepare before court, when she wanted to calm herself down. So Gail waited, for Holly to be done with her ritual, and followed her into the office when she finally knocked and opened the door.
"Dr. Phillips," Holly greeted, seemingly having found her voice again.
The doctor looked up from her desk, peering up through thick glasses. She greeted Holly and only then did she seem to notice Gail.
"This is my wife, Gail," Holly said softly, and the doctor stood up and extended her hand to Gail across the desk. She had a good handshake. Firm but not clingy, and Gail found herself reassured by the older woman's kind green eyes.
"Hello Gail," she said warmly, "why don't you both take a seat."
"Now I now you probably just want to get down to the results," the doctor said as she rummaged around on her desk for a file, "your blood work actually came back inconclusive but as you know, at your last appointment I also took a biopsy of the lump."
Holly had her hands resting on her knees and at the doctor's hesitation she curled her fingers, her nails digging at her flesh through the denim of her jeans. Gail, seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye, managed to wedge her hand under the one of Holly's she could reach and now Holly's nails were digging into her palm instead.
"I am so sorry Holly but the biopsy indicated that you have anaplastic large cell lymphoma."
The doctor's unfamiliar words hung in the air as she gave the news a chance to settle in. Holly's hand squeezed Gail's impossibly tightly before she let go of it altogether, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.
Gail glanced desperately between the doctor and Holly, obviously they knew what the words meant but Gail didn't. It was clear from the doctor's delivery that it was not good news, but Holly's face was unreadable, void of emotion as she kept her gaze trained on her lap.
"W-what is that?" Gail stammered, "it's... is it cancer?" The last word came out almost as a gasp.
"I'm afraid that it is cancer," the doctor replied, "it's a type of what we call a non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Now I know that this is very overwhelming news but there's not much more information I can give you at this point. I've taken the liberty of booking you an appointment with an oncologist specialising in this type of cancer, Dr. Nicholls, up on the 12th floor."
Gail was barely aware of what the doctor was saying, she'd stopped listening from the moment the doctor had confirmed her worst fear. Cancer. The word that despite it gnawing at their minds, neither she nor Holly had dared to say all week. She stood up, the adrenaline coursing though her veins was too much to stay sitting in that uncomfortable chair.
A brief look over at Holly and Gail couldn't fathom how the brunette was just sitting there, nodding passively as the doctor continued to speak. Gail couldn't hear anything now apart from the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears band she had an overwhelming urge to run. To get as far away from the situation as possible.
She caught sight of Holly again, both the doctor and Holly had turned to face her and Holly was saying something that Gail couldn't hear. Maybe she was saying her name?
But Gail couldn't bear it, she could see the devastation in Holly's eyes, the pain on her face and it was all too much and Gail shook her head, stumbling backwards until she bumped into the door.
"I'm sorry," she choked out, as she fumbled with the door handle. Then Gail turned and ran. She ran back down the drag green olive corridor, down the stairs and out into the cold crisp November air. Running on auto pilot Gail flagged down a taxi to take her back to the station.
Everyone noticed that something was wrong with Gail when she stalked back into the station. From the poor rookie on desk duty who had had the audacity to ask her if she was okay had received a hell of an ear bashing to Traci who had attempted to sort out the logistics of an upcoming dinner. The woman had received nothing but a death glare from Gail which had sent her running back upstairs to the safety if her office.
Gail had been back all of 14 minutes before another rookie managed to break her extremely short fuse. She yelled at her so loudly for not having finished his case notes that Dov had had to step in before the officer broke down in tears. Chris had watched Gail's demeanour since she had come back and he knew in his gut that something was wrong. He'd known since before today and now he was Gail was definitely hiding something. But Chris also knew from his previous attempt at showing his concern that he just wasn't going to cut it. He climbed the stairs to Oliver's office two at a time, hoping that the staff sergeant would be able to get through to Gail before she tore someone else up.
"Oliver can I speak to you for a minute?"
"Diaz, what can I do for you? Oh and the Hunter report, I want it before end of shift," Oliver said without looking up from his desk.
"Yeah I'll have it done... uh," he hesitated.
"Time is money Diaz," Oliver prompted.
"Something's wrong with Gail," Chris said, finally earning enough of Oliver's attention for the older man to put down his pen and meet his gaze, "I dropped her off at the hospital for an appointment and she was all cagey then but she's just got back and it's like world war 3 down there. I tried talking to her this morning but she just shut me down."
"I'll, I'll go talk to her," Oliver said, not even hesitating. He'd noticed Gail's weird behaviour over the past week too, but he had allowed himself to accept her excuses of tiredness and new baby stress whenever he'd gently pushed for information. He pushed his chair back and went to the window to observe the lower floor. He could see Gail hunched at her desk, her body language clearly warning away anyone who would approach her. And then he saw Chloe, tentatively walking towards Gail's desk with a mug of coffee.
"That," Oliver said, pointing to Gail and Chloe, "is not going to end well. Thanks for the heads up Diaz," Oliver nodded in appreciation.
"I just hope she's okay," Chris said with a sigh.
Thank you for reading. I'd really like to hear your opinions :)