Once again I want to say THANK YOU! to ragingscooter and talentedgemx for helping me with this!

scoobeedooh, I am just blown away by your support! And oceanchic13 thanks again for taking the time to PM!

And THANK YOU for all of your comments, PMs, tweets, and reviews!

Pt 2

"Hey Chris," I said as I watched the city glide by through half shut eyes, transitioning from blue-grey to golden in the glory of the rising sun. "We smell gross! Do you think we could swing by the station, drop this car off and change before we go to the hospital?"

"Yeah, sure Gail. Ok." Chris replied, "But we're going to have to be quick or with my luck, I'll still get stuck directing traffic around the fire all day when the shift changes."

"You are so right Chris!" I smirked at him, "So why don't you go sign us out, and I'll grab a change of clothes from my locker and we can shower and change at your place?"

As we pulled into the barn, Chris held up his hand to high-five me, "See you at my truck in ten!"

Chris can be so corny, but I high fived him back anyway.

Jimmy Doherty was on the desk in booking when we arrived. He's a forty-year veteran with less than six months left before he gets to collect his pension. I know he's riding the desk on the graveyard shift to make sure he gets there, and for the extra bump in pay. I remember doing ride-alongs with him when I was little. He would always let me run the lights and the siren on the way to his favorite bakery, where he would buy us Boston Cream doughnuts, coffee for him and coffee milk for me.

"Hi-ya Sugar Plum!" He greeted me.

I blushed and Chris started to snicker.

"What are you laughing at there, Cowboy?" Jimmy gave him the hard cop stare.

"Who me?" Chris said, trying to look innocent.

Jimmy kept glaring.

"Hey Jimmy," I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek he proffered in my direction. "If I had known you were on this morning, we would have stopped and Mae's Diner and gotten you some pie."

Jimmy loves the lemon meringue pie from Mae's on Queen St West.

"You are always so sweet to this old man!" He gave me a one armed hug. I rolled my eyes and groaned in mock horror. Which was when he noticed my arm.

"What's that?" He said, as he poked me in the ribs to punctuate his words.

"It's nothing." I lied, "And besides, Chris here is taking me to get it checked out just as soon as we can get out of here."

Jimmy raised one eyebrow at me. "It don't look like nothing. Tell you what. I'll go ahead and sign you kids out if you promise you'll take my princess to the doctor straight from here!" He gave Chris the stare again, and put his hand out to receive the keys to the cruiser.

"Thanks Jimmy!" I kissed his cheek again, "And please, please, don't tell my mother!"

Jimmy mimed zipping his lips shut, locking them, and throwing away the key. "You know Sugar-plum, the minute I get out of here I'm gonna go pick up my dog, and head north to go fishing for the next four days. And you know how I can be such a forgetful old man these days…"

Jimmy has never forgotten a thing in his life, sometimes much to my and Steve's embarrassment.

"Uh, the car has some damage…" Chris began to say.

"What do I look like to you, young man? I said I'd take care of it. Now go on, get going!" He let go of me and pointed at the door.

So much for getting my stuff out of my locker.

"Let's go, Sugar-Plumb!" Chris smirked with glee as we climbed into his truck.

"Don't you dare call me that!" I said threateningly.

"Oh? But why not Sugar-Plumb Princess?" he practically chortled.

I knew he would be totally insufferable if I didn't do something about this now!

"I swear to God Chris, if you ever call me that again, or breathe a word of this to anyone, not only will I murder you in your sleep, but I will cut you up into little, tiny pieces and have Holly donate your unmarked body parts to science!" I narrowed my eyes to deadly slits of pure ice.

"Ok, ok…" He surrendered, but I could tell he was still laughing at me.

Changing the subject, I whined, "We still smell gross, and now I'm gonna be stuck this way for hours!"

"Oh, I dunno about that Gail." He said turning to me with a smile, "You can borrow one of my shirts, and Dov should be gone by the time we get back to the apartment. It wouldn't be the first time I've see you steal some of his sweats.

"Sweet!" I smiled back at him.

Sitting on what used to be my couch, I shot Holly a quick email at the lab to let her know that my phone had gotten wet and died, but I would see her at home tonight. Chris was in the shower and the coffee maker was doing its thing. In the shower, the gashes on both my head and my arm had opened up and had started to bleed again. I had to convince Chris to help me bandage them, and that it was ok for him to shower while I made us some coffee. And thank God for coffee! All I really wanted to do was sleep. I put my bare feet up on the coffee table, and closed my eyes for a moment against the brightness of the day.

My mouth was dry, there was a banging behind my eyes with all of the subtlety of a jackhammer, and the shadows had shifted across the room as I cautiously cracked one of my eyes open to find myself cuddled into Chris's chest, with one of his arms flung protectively around me. He was snoring like a chainsaw, with his feet up on the coffee table too, and his head thrown against the back of the couch, mouth gaping open. Gently, I untangled myself from his grip and sat up slowly, willing the contents of my stomach not to revolt. I shuffled into the kitchen to find the coffee maker had shut its self off. The clock on the wall read 2:30 pm. Holy crap! I poured myself a mug of coffee and threw it into the microwave. As I reached up to turn it on, I realized that the sleeve of my shirt was sticking to my arm where I had bled through the bandage.

"Gail?" Chris's voice came from the other room.

"In here!" I answered

Chris shuffled into the kitchen rubbing his eyes like a sleepy little kid.

"Wow! We must have fallen asleep!" He had that bleary-eyed lost look about him. "We should get you to the ER to be taken care of."

"Not before coffee!" I insisted, handing him the re-warmed mug and zapping another one for me.

It amazed me how my tiny room in the Emergency Room at Mercy General could be cold and yet stuffy at the same time. Granted, the only reason I had a room and wasn't out in the lobby with the cattle was due to the fact that I'm a police officer. At three thirty five in on this Friday afternoon, the weekend was already starting to make its-self known. We were in line behind a coronary, a drunken escapade where some idiot frat boy was trying to skateboard while being towed behind his friend's motorcycle and they both lost control, an OBGYN emergency, and an old lady who fell and broke her hip. I tried calling Holly from the nurse's station to let her know I would probably be running late, but her phone was off and her voicemail was full. When I called her office, her phone was answered by the new intern… Monica? Marilyn? Muffy? Anyway, the annoying twit had no idea who I was. She told me Holly was out of the office right now, and she was too busy to take a personal message. I was just about to tell her where she could stick it when she hung up on me. I know Holly hates it when I mess with her interns, but that stupid little bitch is toast!

Since I couldn't reach Holly, Chris decided to stay with me, although he did go out to get us some food and pick up our replacement phones from the nearest wireless store when it became clear that we would be here for hours. My arm had taken seventeen stitches, and my head had taken five. Although I was told I had suffered from a grade three concussion, we were still waiting for my CT scan to happen. The neurologist said he was impressed with my level of cognitive function after receiving such a blow and I would probably be released if I promised I wouldn't be alone for the next forty-eight hours, and I would return if my symptoms got worse.

Chris and I were watching another re-run of Law & Order when the nurse arrived to let us know I would be taken down to radiology shortly.

"Do you want me to try reaching Holly again while you are getting your head examined?" Chris asked with a yawn and a stretch.

"No, that's ok. It doesn't look like they are going to keep me here. Besides, the lab seems extra busy today and you know how she panics if she thinks something has happened to me." I said with a shrug. "I may as well just tell her about it when I get home."

The orderlies arrived to take me down to radiology.

"Yeah, ok." He said getting to his feet and stretching again. "I'm going to the cafeteria, guess I'll see you when you get back."

"Will you bring me back a doughnut?" I almost begged.

"Cake! If they don't have doughnuts, I'll settle for cake…" I called after him as they wheeled me away.

"Sure, I'll see what I can do… Sugar-Plumb." He called back with a smirk.

I glared, and stuck my tongue out at him.

He just laughed and waved at me, and continued down the hall.

It was just after midnight when Chris finally dropped me off at home. I stumbled into the kitchen to get myself a beer and see if there were any leftovers I could snack on before going to bed. The fridge was packed with an odd assortment of cold cuts, and pizza, and two kinds of casserole things I didn't recognize. I wondered what Holly had been up to while I was gone. Maybe she hosted one of her department meeting dinners and forgot to tell me about it again. I was so tired, but my mind was still spinning in circles. What a crazy couple of days it had been. I knew the doctor said no alcohol, but I opened the beer anyway, I mean it wasn't like I was doing shots or something. I sat at the kitchen counter holding it, and staring at the walls until my mind began to clear. When I found myself falling asleep in my chair, I ended up dumping most of it down the sink.

Holly was asleep when I entered our bedroom as quietly as I could. I felt a pang of guilt as I noticed her clothes on the floor and that she seemed to be curled up around my sweatshirt. She must have had a long exhausting day. It's funny, but we tell each other things, and I couldn't wait to share what the past two days had been like, with her. It still kind of amazed me that I felt this way about anyone. I shed my own clothes quickly and put both hers and mine in the hamper before crawling into bed. In the light of the moon shining through our window she looked so vulnerable I couldn't help leaning in to kiss the base of her neck. She let out a whimper. I pulled her tight against my chest, spooning into her. Tears leaked from her closed eyes, and I was hit with a wave of protectiveness and love. Continuing to kiss her softly, I murmured, "It's ok love, it's ok." I gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. "It's just a bad dream."

She rolled into my arms and returned my kiss with such raw passion it took my breath away. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks as I got on top of her, holding her face in my hands.

"Oh Babe, why are you crying?" I mumbled into her lips before kissing her again.

Her moan ripped through me as she dug her fingers into my butt hard, and strained against me, pulling me down onto her ridged thigh. It sparked a primal need in me and we were off, swept away on a tide of hunger, and aching necessity. When we finally reached the edge together, she called my name with such longing it sent me spinning out of control. They always said that sex and love were intertwined, but I never knew, until Holly, love could actually be so tangible, so overwhelming. How it could crack us open and leave us limp and tender, weeping in the comfort and safety of each other's arms. She was sobbing hard, so I rolled off of her, while pulling her impossibly closer.

I whispered. "I love you baby, please don't cry".

I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her eyelids shut. She clung to me harder still. Cradled in my arms, her tears subsided as sleep finally came to claim us.