You're In My Spot – Chapter 3

Oh Wow, you guys gave back a huge reaction! You're all awesome. Thank you! Have a virtual cookie, they're fresh from the oven, I swear.

Here's Chapter 3, I hope you like it as much as the previous two and I hope you'll continue to stick with me through this thing.

Gail sat down on Holly's desk and shovelled a forkful of noodles into her mouth.

"Charming." Holly sat back in her chair, and rolled her eyes when Gail grinned messily back at her. "You know, I think a four year old has better manners than you."

Gail speared a piece of chicken and pointed at Holly with it. "Would a four year old go out to the best Chinese place in town and buy delicious food for their girlfriend?" She shoved the chicken into her mouth and gave her a look as if to make her point.

"No, but a four year old would better at sharing than you. C'mon give me a bite." Holly moved to reach for Gail's fork but she petulantly whipped it away before Holly could take it.

"Uh, no? You have your own." Gail swallowed and nodded to the pile beside her where several other cartons filled with various foods sat.

Holly looked over to where the rest of Gail's lunch purchase sat still inside the plastic. Crackers, dumplings and some rice dish all looked, and smelt, pretty good but… they weren't quite what she wanted just yet. She looked at Gail right in the eye. "Yeah, but I want chicken and noodles." She held out her hand. "So cough up."

Gail raised a cynical brow. "You really don't want me to do that."

Holly ignored her and sat back again, her eyes narrowing challengingly behind her glasses. "Gail. I'm hungry and I want noodles. So, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

A moment passed.

Then Gail simply curled more noodles around her fork and leisurely brought it up to her lips. Slowly she then wrapped her mouth around the loaded prongs, all whilst maintaining eye contact with Holly. With a defiant smirk she pulled the fork away clean and started chewing.

That just wasn't going to fly with Holly. She leapt forward for the frontal assault and tried to grab the takeout box from out of Gail's hands, but the blonde was just step ahead of her and whisked it away and above her head. From her position Gail was taller than Holly so directly reaching for them again wouldn't work.

Holly took one look at Gail's enigmatic, half mouth-full smile and narrowed her eyes.

Time for a change in tactics.

She moved forward again only this time she didn't immediately reach for the noodles. No, instead she somehow used both Gail and her desk to pull herself onto Gail's lap with her knees landing awkwardly either side of Gail's thighs. She paused to shoot her disgruntled girlfriend a quick lopsided grin before using her newly gain height advantage to again reach her for lunch whilst laughingly deflecting off Gail's defending arm and garbled protests. "Give it up Peck!"

Gail spluttered but managed to swallow in time to laugh and stretched her arm back further; leaning backwards to avoid Holly's grabbing hand. "This is assault of a police officer, I could have you arrested for this!" Her back hit the desk and a few noodles spilt on to the floor from the way Gail's hand was awkwardly held. Holly determinedly followed, crawling up Gail's body to grasp further, but her fingers only managed to touch the outside, whilst accidently giving Gail a particularly fantastic view of her breasts.

"You can't arrest me if you have no evidence!"

A surprisingly strong arm snaked its way around Holly's waist and pulled her down causing her to lose her balance and fall against Gail's chest, her hand pulled back by the motion. Holly gasped and looked down at Gail, a lock of hair escaping her sensible pony-tail. "I can totally plant evidence against you."

Holly let out a half laugh and grinned crookedly. "Gail, you do know what my job is, right? I could remove any trace of evidence against me and pile it all against you." Holly's smirked, her eyes flickering to the noodles again before Gail could respond. But then she froze, arm half stretched out, reaching for the box again. "Oh God, Brian, this is not what it looks like."

Gail stiffened and her eyes widened in shock as all the happy, banterous feelings immediately dissipated. She lurched to stand up and Holly was jolted awkwardly back onto her feet, only fleetingly left off-balance as Gail whirled around to face their unintentional voyeur.

Only to find an empty door way.

Tanned hands stole the take-out box easily from her hands and Holly fell back into her chair laughing, the momentum causing her to roll back a bit on the wheels of her chair, as she held onto her prize. "Oh Gail, you are too easy sometimes."

Gail slowly turned to face her girlfriend, her expression transitioning from shock and confusion to understanding and then flat out glaring in a matter of a few seconds. She crossed her arms. "You… are beyond a horrible person, Holly."

Holly just gave her a smug grin and mimicked Gail from earlier, forking up a bunch of noodles and making a show of enjoying the food as she chewed. "Mm, you know Gail, this is really good. You should try some."

She chuckled as Gail petulantly plopped herself down on the desk again and scornfully looked down at her girlfriend. "You're a horrible, dirty, Chinese food stealing thief, Holly."

Holly just ate another forkful; her eyes crinkling in amusement and Gail glowered at her. "And I don't like you anymore."

"Yes you do. And remember, I'm a horrible, dirty, Chinese food stealing thief that you agreed to move in with yesterday." Holly pointed out.

"Yeah, remind me why I'm doing that again?"

Holly's phone rang and she shot Gail a good-humoured yet apologetic look as she went to answer it, putting down her lunch as she did so. "Because you love me and I'm awesome,- Doctor Stewart."

Gail huffed and immediately stole back her noodles, childishly making a show of shovelling another forkful in her mouth. Holly simply rolled her eyes and flicked at her thigh as she listened for a moment to her phone.

"-I'll be right there." Holly sighed and put her phone down. "Gail, I'm sorry, but I've been called out."

Gail swallowed and tried not to let her disappointment show as Holly then got up to find her jacket and forensics bag. She'd been looking forward to this lunch break ever since Holly had dropped her off at the station that morning. "Oh, well that's okay. It's your job. Just means more food for me."

Gail twirled her fork idly as she watched as Holly slipped on her jacket and flipped her hair out from under the collar before tapping her jacket pockets to listen for her keys. "I'll see you later though, right?"

Satisfied she had everything; Holly moved over to where Gail was and gave her a quick kiss, her hand giving Gail's a quick squeeze. "Yeah. I finish around six today, and, we live together now." Holly smiled crookedly. "You don't have to ask me that again."

"Oh." Gail's face visibly brightened with the realisation. "Oh! Then I'll totally see you later."

Holly smirked. "Yeah you will… Roomie."

Gail's own phone went off and she huffed irritably as she went to answer it. "Don't call me that Hol, and- What Chris? I'm still on lunch break."

Holly chuckled and squeezed Gail's hand one more time before exiting her office, leaving Gail to peevishly listen to Chris.

"Gail… I- We have to go." She heard Chris take a deep breath. "A cops been found dead."

Chris and Gail strode quickly into the warehouse, only stopping to survey the area, finding it packed full of people of different types already. Forensic teams, rookies, detectives and more all milled or moved about the area, either doing their jobs or awaiting for some sort of instruction or explanation from a superior, much like they currently were.

The warehouse had a large space with low slung, rotten beams and half broken industrial lighting overhead. It allowed only a modicum of lighting in addition to whatever light came in from outside through doors, windows or various cracks in the building work. Old crates and rusted storage containers were scattered around the place making manoeuvring about more difficult, especially with so many people around the crime scenes.

Gail grunted lightly, to her knowledge, until now, for a long time this place was thought to be abandoned or at least unused.

Frank's voice drifted over the workplace din and Gail watched as Frank warred with a guy who, if the camera strapped to his back was any indication, appeared to be some kind of reporter. Gail picked out Sam, Traci and Oliver from those surrounding him, their faces grim and strained, like most others around the scene. No one liked investigating the death of a dead cop.

Gail signalled to Chris to join them when a forensic photographer roughly pushed past her, headed to the crime scene itself. She spun on her heal, glaring at him. "Hey, watch it!"

The man muttered his apologies but ducked away before even finishing his sentence. So much for sincerity.

Gail's scowl followed the guy for a few seconds before fleetingly falling on the dead body itself. From what she could see from the people constantly moving through her line of vision the victim looked as if to be in his late-twenties with cropped blond hair and an ashen face. Blood was plastered to his face, dried after trickling down the side of his forehead and nose. He didn't look particularly familiar to her.

Inwardly she was glad she didn't recognise the guy, it made dealing with this kind of thing a lot easier. Her mind travelled back five months or so to where both Chloe and Sam had been hospitalised, and just how emotionally unstable she'd been around that time. She really hadn't handled that well.

Chris nudged her, pulling her out of her head and nodded over at the crime scene again. "Hey, Holly's here."

And sure enough she was. She watched as Holly stepped under the tape line; briefly exchange a few words with a colleague before squatting beside the body, pulling on her latex gloves as she did so.

Gail hitched a thumb over to Holly. "I'm gunna go see what's going on." Chris nodded and after a moments deliberation followed her over, clearly at a loss at what else to do for the moment.

Stopping just before the tapeline Gail leaned against a wall with her arms crossed and called out to her girlfriend. "So, how come I got here first? You left before me."

Holly looked up to focus on her girlfriend's voice and gave her a quick but genuine smile before focusing back on the body again. "Well Officer, strangely enough I tend to follow the traffic laws."

Gail snorted. Holly was notorious for speeding. She'd looked over to see Holly speeding more times than she should ignore as a police officer. It was seriously a good thing that she liked the Forensic pathologist.

Gail turned her attention to the corpse. Inspecting it from further away had made the wound look to be a clean shot. But now that Gail was up close she could see just how large the bullet hole was, and judging by the large pool of mostly dried blood underneath the victim's head, she could only imagine the mess that the back of his head might look like.

She looked back to his face again, noting the glassy blue of his eyes and stubble on his chin. She narrowed her eyes, looking just a bit harder at the man. Maybe he did carry a vague sense of familiarity about him, but she couldn't place it. If he was a cop however, it was entirely likely she'd seen him around the precinct a couple times and just not thought much of it.

She watched as Holly gently patted down the victim and finally reached deep into a side pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She turned it around a few times inspecting it before sealing it into an evidence bag and continuing her investigation. Satisfied he wasn't carrying anything more, Holly moved up to his face, bending over his body to take a proper look at the bullet wound. She lightly dabbed at the wound with her gloved fingers, gently probing ashen flesh about in what Gail assumed was Holly's way of mentally measuring the diameter of the entry point.

Nodding to herself Holly then tipped his head gently side to side, searching for any irregularities before resting him softly back on the ground again and feeling down his chest.

It was quite surreal watching Holly, Gail decided. Her girlfriend was meticulous in almost everything she did, from trivial tasks such as washing-up, to something much more serious like investigating a loss of life. It was like Holly had this innate perfectionist instinct to be the best she could be in any situation, a trait Gail certainly didn't share, but admired anyway. Not that she'd tell Holly that anyway, but it was definitely an intriguing part of her at the very least.

Gail tilted her head to the side in order to get a better view of watching Holly work; she'd just unbuttoned the guy's shirt. Why, Gail didn't know but Holly obviously knew what she was doing anyhow. The shirt opened to show a relatively unremarkable and hairy torso, but there was a patch of hair missing just below the left side of his chest. Holly's brow furrowed, and she leaned in to examine it a little closer.

It was honestly quite enjoyable - if enjoyable was the right word to use - to watch Holly at work, to see her so invested and intelligent about putting together the puzzle of someone's death. Gail loved hanging out with Holly at home or wherever they might end up on one of their dates, but she hadn't really experienced her Holly at the crime scene all that much. Sure, she'd walked in mid-way a few autopsies but that wasn't the same thing. It was strange, but not in the least bit unpleasant.

Gail jolted when Frank drew up beside her, seemingly finished with his argument. She stood up straight.

He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face grimly as he saw the dead man before him. He folded his arms as he ran his eyes over his former colleague. If Gail had known her boss better, she might have noticed a flicker of sadness behind his stoic mask.

He cleared his throat and addressed Holly. "What can you tell us?"

Holly looked up, her face a mask of pure professionalism. "Judging by the fully fledged rigor mortis I'd estimate he's been dead for about twelve or fourteen hours. He died around midnight last night."

She pointed to the head wound.

"The shot to the head here looks like a large fire arm, maybe 45 calibre, and due to the cranial damage to the back of his head, the shot was likely at close range." Holly paused but when no one questioned her she carried on and gestured to the bare patch on the victim's chest. "These abrasions here left a few tape fragments. He had something strapped to his chest, what however, I don't know."

"A wire. He was wearing a wire." Frank spoke gruffly and his jaw tightened before exhaling heavily again. "His name's Jack Donnelly. Thirty one. Had a wife and two kids." He cleared his throat. "A damn good detective too."

Holly looked at him sympathetically. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Frank grunted his thanks and exhaled again. "So, it looks like they knew about his wire then." He squared his shoulders and nodded to Holly before walking back into the middle of the warehouse. "All right people, hustle up!"

A tentative hush fell as people gathered around him. "I want every available cop and detective down here working the streets on this case. Get everyone from headquarters. The only cop I want there is the one manning the front desk until further notice. This man- Jack, was one of us." He cleared his throat. "And clearly the people who killed him have no problem killing again, so that means you guys be careful and you all come back in one piece. No argument."

A murmur of agreement rose from the amassed officers but Frank hadn't finished. "One last thing. Jack was in a deep undercover drug-bust op. So keep an eye out for any drug related matters. And Diaz-," Chris stood a little straighter beside Gail. "You're transporting the evidence."

"Yes sir."

Frank looked about the collective force. "Dismissed."

The amassed group turned to leave when a door slammed open and a heated voice ripped through the air. "You!" A tall, Caucasian woman marched in angrily pointing a finger at Frank. "You!"

Oliver went to step in. "Hey Laurie wait."

But she shoved him aside until two more officers held her back but she fiercely carried on speaking, almost spitting at Frank. "If you kept us together on this case Jack wouldn't be dead!"

She furiously pushed the officers back but didn't move to confront Best again, instead she jabbed another finger at him. "You'd better have a good reason for sending him in alone. You better have a fucking good reason because he's dead because of you!" She then span round and pushed her way through the crowd towards her partner's dead body. This time nobody tried to stop her.

Losing your partner was a business no one on the police force would want to experience, ever. It was like losing a person you know so intimately and relied on so heavily that you don't know just how much you used them as a crutch until they were torn away from you. They were essentially your person, the one you trusted implicated above all others, aside from any romantic significant others.

Holly moved back so to give the woman some space to grieve and very briefly caught Gail's eyes, and for a second Gail caught a flicker of worry and compassion in the depths of her eyes but she turned to pack up her forensic 'lunchbox' before she could make sure.

Frank quietly dismissed everyone again and this time the crowd really did disperse and all collectively went about their tasks. Chris headed towards Holly, who had subtly moved away from the crime scene, with Gail not far behind; they were partners today after all. She picked up the last of their short conversation as Holly passed Chris the evidence bags.

"We'll probably see you at the station then." Chris gestured to the forensics bag in Holly's hand. "You look like you're getting ready to go."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well there isn't much for me to do at the moment. Usually I'd be gathering samples but someone else has already done that for me, so now I'd be more useful back at the lap, prepping for his autopsy." Holly glanced over his shoulder to see Gail. "Hey."

"Hey."

Holly cleared her throat and looked at Chris. "Do you mind if I talk to Gail for a second?"

"Uh, sure. I'll see you at the car, Gail."

Gail opened her mouth to speak but Holly held up a hand to stop her. "I know you're going to say it's your job, and that you'll be okay and that I shouldn't worry, but I just-, be safe okay? It- It's just that, well last time this happened, Sam and Chloe, they… And, and if these guys knew and willingly killed a cop, I don't know if-"

She sighed grabbed Gail's hand in her own, public eyes be damned. "I just don't want anything to happen to you. I mean, we just agreed to move in together and I, well it's not just that, I'm always worried about you, but our relationship has just moved up a step and I don't want to lose you-"

"Holly."

"Or for you to get hurt at all-"

"Holly!" Holly stopped herself but her forehead was still apprehensively creased and her usually warm, brown eyes were wide with concern.

Gail's eyes glanced about her but no-one appeared to be paying any attention to them. In fact most people were too busy trying to surreptitiously and simultaneously watch Oliver talk to the grieving woman whilst going about their jobs to pay attention to them.

"Holly, I'll be Okay, I promise. I have no plans on going to the hospital at all. I'll be with Chris all day and we'll look out for each other, just like we always do." She squeezed Holly's hand, smiling lightly when she got a squeeze back. "Besides, with the whole of 15 on this case, we'll be done by dinner, easy."

Holly smiled weakly but the worry didn't dissipate from her eyes. She sighed and let go of Gail's hand to hold her bag with both hands. "Okay, okay well, I guess I'll see you back at the morgue then? You know, for the evidence."

"Yeah, probably. And I'll definitely see you tonight."

Holly nodded smiled again, a little stronger this time. She looked as if she wanted to say something else but restrained herself at the last second. "I'll see you later then."

She then hesitantly walked away, presumably off to her car.

Gail followed her out but caught the last few words from Ollie as she passed. "Come on Laurie; let's get you to the station." She didn't think much of it; it was probably a good thing Ollie was taking her away from the scene.

Gail walked back to her car where Chris was waiting, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "We good to go?"

"Yeah, let's go."

He started the engine and pulled out on to the road. "Must be nice to have someone care that much about you."

"Oh God, do not go all weepy on me, Diaz."

"I wasn't! I was just-; it must be nice is all. To have someone like that."

Gail grunted her agreement but didn't reply, because it was nice. She liked how Holly made her feel, even if she was still getting used to dealing with her emotions. It was great knowing that Holly cared. But she couldn't be bothered to go into that with Chris, not today at least, he was still in his age long dry spell.

The radio cracked into life for the second time. "1504, we have another domestic dispute call over at 64 Richmond Street West."

Gail rolled her eyes and huffed irritably. "Haven't those idiots made up yet?" She picked up the radio. "1504, is there no one else available for this? We're transporting evidence."

Whilst Frank had ordered all of 15 to work on this new case there still had to be a few cars out on patrol of incidents such as this.

"Negative 1504, you're the nearest vehicle by a ten mile radius."

Gail and Chris exchanged a look and an understanding fell between them. The evidence would have to wait a while longer. "1504, we're responding."

I hope this was Okay and you enjoyed it. Please tell me if something appears to be out of character or if there are any errors, I'd love to improve any way I can.

Edit: Someone had just pointed out that I'm taking the plot and dialogue from another TV - Rizzoli and Isles, and I know I am, I put that in the disclaimer at the beginning and I said that I'd put the full disclaimer at the end of the story so that the story may not be ruined for a person. Believe me, I am not trying to steal material, I'm just using it to help me get through to my own material. Whilst I will be using the vague guidelines of a particular episode I will not be copying it completely. I hope that my own content will supersede it.

So, I'm sorry if you know which episode that I'm talking about, but don't worry, the story will be my own in the end. Like I said. I will give a full disclaimer at the end, and I'll likely repeat this message in the coming chapters so people get the message.

Sorry about that.

You guys ready for some shit to go down?