So here's the next part of chapter 3. Please review :)
iii. part 2
Gail," Chloe said softly, "I made you some coffee," the redhead set the mug down on the desk and waited for an answer. When it was clear that Gail wasn't going to acknowledge her, she took a step closer.
"Or maybe I should have made tea, you know what they say about tea, it makes everything better," Chloe rambled, wringing her hands together.
Gail turned slowly to face Chloe and Chloe forced herself not to take a step back at the venomous look on the blonde's face.
"Do you think," Gail said in a voice that was too calm and too quiet, "that what I need right now is you buzzing in my ear about tea and coffee? Do you?"
"Gail, I..."
"I asked you a question," Gail said, her words dripping with contempt, "do you?"
"No. I don't think so," Chloe answered, holding her hands out in front of her defensively.
"You don't think so? You don't THINK SO?" Gail shouted, "my god what is wrong with you people?"
Gail slammed her hands against the desk in frustration and coffee slopped over the side of the mug and onto a pile of paperwork.
Chloe bit her lip as she looked worriedly at Gail and then down at the papers, but Gail just took a deep shuddering breath and stalked off in the direction of the locker room.
There were too many people in the locker room but luckily for Gail the ladies bathroom was empty. She splashed some cold water on her face, not failing to notice how violently her hands were shaking. Water ran off her face and onto the collar of her shirt as she looked up and caught her reflection in the mirror.
"What are you doing?" She whispered as she curled her hands around the edge of the sink, though the smooth porcelain didn't give her much to grip on to. The action caused a flash of pain in her right hand and as she looked down to examine it she saw four little crescent moon shapes in her palm, red and angry. Holly had dug her nails in so tightly that it had bruised.
Holly.
"Oh my god," Gail gasped and suddenly everything hit her at once. The doctor, Holly's hand in hers, the diagnosis and Holly's face then Holly's eyes pleading with her as she had run out of that room.
Her stomach roiled and she barely made it into a stall in time before she vomited up a mixture of coffee and bile that burned the back of her throat and made her eyes water. Gail flushed the toilet and sat back against the tile wall with her head in her hands.
Gail's first instinct was to try and hide when she heard Oliver call her name but she quickly gave up on that idea when she realised that being in the last cubicle of the bathroom, she had nowhere to go. So she reached up and pulled the door shut, clicking the lock closed.
"Peck are you in here?" His voice was louder now as he actually entered the bathroom, and it echoed around the tiled surfaces.
She stayed silent, hoping that he would give up and go away, but he was relentless, checking every stall until he came to the second but last one. Gail realised too late that the toes of her boots were sticking out under the wall into the next cubicle. She dragged her feet back, wrapping her arms around her knees but she knew he had already seen her.
"Are you going to open this or am I going to have to climb over because I'm telling you now, one of those options is not going to make me very happy." Oliver warned, a hint of sarcasm lacing his voice.
Gail appreciated that he was trying to diffuse the situation he had so blindly walked into with humour in the the way she usually would, but through no fault of his own it fell so, so short and she couldn't give him a response other than the silently unlock the door. She heard a shuffle when the door swung outwards and when she flicked her eyes up from the spot she had been staring at on the floor she could see Oliver sat opposite her.
"I don't sit on bathroom floors for just anyone you know," Oliver tried again.
"I didn't ask you to," Gail bit back. It came out much harsher than she intended it to but she just couldn't help it.
"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Oliver asked softly. Though she was trying to hold herself together, he could see how much Gail was shaking and he realised he had never, ever seen her like this. Not after her abduction, not when Sam and Chloe got shot and not when her father had died. Never.
"I ran away Oliver," Gail said, but she couldn't bear to look at him. She kept her eyes trained on the floor.
Oliver frowned in confusion, "you had a hospital appointment today right?"
Gail shook her head, "Holly had an appointment. We didn't want to tell anyone until we knew."
"Until you knew what Gail?" Oliver prompted. If he had to play this game of 20 questions with anyone else it would frustrate him but he knew with Gail you had to coax information out of her piece by small piece.
"Holly is..." Gail let out a sob and dropped her head onto her knees.
She continued the sentence but Oliver couldn't hear because her words were muffled. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, hoping that the gesture would help to bring Gail at least some comfort from whatever was torturing her.
"Holly's sick Oliver." This time Gail looked straight at him, and Oliver could have sworn he saw Gail's heart break right in front of him.
"We were at the hospital and the doctor told us she has cancer and I freaked out and I ran away. I left her there alone."
Oliver took a couple of deep breaths to try and calm himself down. He was reeling from the news he had just gotten but he knew his role in this situation was firstly to calm Gail down, because as much as Oliver knew she needed to go back and be with Holly, she would be of no use in her current state. Oliver shifted so he was sitting next to Gail instead of opposite her. The hinge of the door pressed into his back as the toilet cubicles weren't made for two people to be sitting in them but he ignored it and stretched his arm out around Gail's shoulders.
"Come here," he said softly, coaxing her into a hug. Oliver was acutely aware of the tension rolling off of Gail, he could feel it in the way her shoulders shook and he could hear it in the stunted little gasps of breath she was taking.
"Slow it down," he soothed, rubbing her shoulder rhythmically, "it's okay. We're going to calm down, then call Holly and find out where she is and I'm going to take you to her okay?"
"She's not… Oliver I just left, how…" Gail started to ramble, but Oliver shook his head.
"Mmm, no talking for the next little while okay. You're in shock Gail, you need to calm down, and it's… it's gonna be okay," Oliver reassured her.
He hoped beyond hope that his words weren't baseless. It was clear to him that Gail had bolted out of fear but he had to admit he didn't know how Holly would react, especially not in a situation as impossible as this.
After it had become clear to Oliver that Gail wasn't ready to call Holly, Oliver had taken it upon himself to do so. Despite him ringing from Gail's phone, Holly hadn't seemed surprised that it was Oliver who had called her. She'd told him that she was still at the hospital, waiting for her second appointment and not much else. It had been hard for him to get an angle on Holly's frame of mind without seeing her face but it was obvious she wasn't in the mood to talk. But he had turned to Gail with as much enthusiasm as he could muster and asked her if she was ready to leave.
Gail had simply nodded her head sadly and followed him out of the station and into a squad car. She was calm now, but still silent and Oliver noticed, as he glanced over to the passenger side that Gail was drawing patterns on the fogged up window, swirling nonsensical circles and dots with her fingertip.
"I'm scared Oliver," she suddenly blurted out, though her artistic exploration of the window didn't slow, "I ran because I was scared and I shouldn't have just left her like at I don't even know what I was thinking."
"You weren't thinking, it was a fight or flight response and you chose flight. I know you regretted it the moment you stepped into this building. Probably before," Oliver mused. "And you have every right to be scared Gail, anyone in your situation would be, but Holly's scared too and sometimes even when everything in you is saying you want to get up and run, you've just got to be a little braver," Oliver said, and Gail knew he was right. And she wished she had been braver when it had really mattered, back in that room.
"Do you remember when Holly was in the hospital with food poisoning?" Oliver asked, and Gail suddenly stopped and looked at him. It had been hell for both Holly and Gail and Oliver felt a little bad about bringing it up.
"We nearly lost Paige," Gail said quietly, shuddering at the memory. Holly had been so weak and she was vomiting up whatever fluids they'd managed to get into her and the doctors had warned them that it was very likely that Holly would miscarry due to the strain on her body.
"Were you scared then?"
"Of course I was scared," Gail frowned at Oliver, wondering why now of all times he was bringing this up.
"But you stayed awake for 72 hours, holding her hand, telling her to ignore what the doctors had said about losing the baby, that she was stronger than anyone knew. And she got through it and now you have a beautiful daughter and that was because of your strength and your encouragement."
Out of the corner of his eye Oliver saw Gail wipe a tear from her cheek and he sighed as she shook her head.
"That was all Holly, she fought that-"
"Yes she is strong and stubborn as hell and that's how I know she's going to fight this, with you by her side. That's how you need to approach this Gail. I know you and you are so, so brave and yes, it's scary but you can face it head on," Oliver saw her sigh, "don't you dare shake your head again."
Gail just bit her lip and turned back to face out of the window and Oliver was worried he'd pushed her too far. That was the thing about Gail, she always underestimated herself and her abilities, tearing herself down before anyone else had the chance to. These insecurities had diminished somewhat over the past few years but they were still there beneath the surface, the clinging remnants of a childhood where her best was never good enough for her overbearing mother.
It was only when Oliver had parked up the squad car and switched off the engine that Gail moved again. She twisted awkwardly in her seat and threw her arms around Oliver, catching him off guard in a bone crushing hug. "Thank you," she said sincerely as she pulled back, "I just-"
"It's okay Gail." Oliver replied warmly, "go to Holly, if I'm not mistaken she's over there on that bench."
Sure enough, there was Holly sitting on a bench about 50 feet away. Her expression was unreadable but she waved over at the squad car and it gave Gail the motivation she needed to open the car door. Oliver gave her one last reassuring look before the shut the door and started walking over to Holly.
Holly wasn't dressed for the chilly November wind and as Gail approached her she could see that the brunette was shivering. Immediately she shrugged off her own heavy jacket, and didn't even pause to ask Holly if she wanted it before she draped it over her shoulders and sat down next to her.
"You left me," Holly said, and though her words stung, Gail knew it was the truth and if she was being honest she was glad that she hadn't had to initiate the conversation. But Holly didn't even give her a chance to apologise as she continued to speak.
"You left me sitting there and I was calling you to come back and you didn't come back."
"Holly I'm so... I'm so, I'm," Gail's words failed her. There was nothing she could offer Holly that would make what she did okay.
"I thought you were done running from things and you ran away when I needed you."
Gail's heart lurched at Holly's words. She thought back to their wedding day, the vows they'd said to each other, when they'd promised not to leave when times got tough, in sickness and in health. She pressed her eyes tightly shut to try and quell the tears that were threatening to fall. Gail felt like she didn't have the right to cry.
"Holly, I panicked and it was awful and wrong and I'm-"
Holly shook her head softly, cutting off Gail's rambly attempt at an apology. "But I've had time to think about it, and I get it Gail, I do. I understand why you did that. I'm not angry," Holly said, "can you look at me?" She sounded congested and Gail wasn't sure if it was because of the cold wind or because Holly had been crying.
Reluctantly Gail brought her gaze up to meet Holly's eyes. The blonde couldn't understand why Holly was being so nice to her, she had rehearsed a whole barrage of apologies and explanations in her head on the way over that it seemed now she wasn't going to need to use.
Holly cupped Gail's face, ran her thumb gently across her cheekbone and smiled, managing to coax a small smile back from Gail despite how guilty the blonde was feeling.
"I was pissed at you for a while, more than a while," Holly said honestly, not breaking eye contact with Gail, "and then I realised, if our situations had been switched, if it was you, I'm not sure I wouldn't have acted the same way. Or at least have wanted to. And I just, the news wasn't a shock to me like it was to you, I guess, well I mean it was a shock for me but..." Holly sighed, searching for the right words to get her point across.
"I know you're feeling guilty Gail, I can see it written all over your face and I just wanna tell you that you don't have to feel guilty for something that I know you didn't do on purpose. This whole situation doesn't really come with a manual does it? And I'm not angry with you okay?"
"I-" Gail stammered, shaking her head.
"Okay?" Holly repeated with a half-smile.
"Okay." Gail agreed, letting out a long breath she didn't realise she had been holding.
"But I need you to promise me something, I need you to promise me you won't run again because…" Holly hesitated and took a couple of deep breaths to try and hold back the tears that were threatening to fall, "because I'm really, really scared and I can't do this without you."
"I promise," Gail whispered, "I promise you that I will never leave you again, ever." Gail covered the hand Holly had resting on her face with her own and laced her fingers in between Holly's.
The trembling of Holly's lower lip threatened imminent tears and Gail swallowed back her own, determined to be the strong one for Holly. She pushed Holly's glasses up and on to her head and then wiped away the first teardrop that had started to fall down Holly's cheek with her thumb.
"I'm here. I'm here now and we're going to go back in there and whatever that doctor says we're going to face it together okay? It's okay to be afraid," Gail said, echoing Oliver's earlier words, "But I'm right here with you."
I know it seems like Holly forgave Gail too easily, I know of it was me I wouldn't have been so understanding, but this does have repercussions later on in the fic so please bear with me. I'm thinking this was slightly too ambitious of a storyline to write with characters I'm new to writing but as they say practice makes perfect. Thanks for sticking with me :)