AN: Hey guys! Thanks so much for all the love! I seriously cannot believe it. Wow you guys are awesome. Well here goes chapter two. I would love to hear what y'all think of it. Enjoy!
AN2: And this is where all the disclaimer nonsense goes.. Yada yada yada..
It's Oliver who calls her. Holly isn't even sure why he has her number. The ringer is loud, too loud. It practically reverberates off the walls of her office, startling her from sleep. Maybe working late hadn't been the best idea, but she had a ton of dictations to finish and she couldn't sleep well unless Gail was with her anyways. There's something in his voice that sounds off, like he's trying too hard to stay calm, but it's too late and she is too drowsy to concentrate. It's not until Holly hears the word shot that she shoots up out of her chair, banging her knee against the underside of the desk. In the back of her mind, she always knew that this could happen. Cops don't wear Kevlar for nothing. Holly just never imagined that she would ever be on the receiving end of a phone call like this one.
The next thing she remembers is the waiting room. How she even got to the hospital is a blur. In fact, everything is a blur. Holly hardly notices the steady trickle of officers who have made their way through the doors and into the uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs. Traci brings her a cup of coffee that she doesn't drink. The cup burns her hands but she holds on tighter, desperate for something to keep her grounded when everything else is spinning out of control. She doesn't notice that Chris is pacing back and forth and Chloe is sitting on the floor chomping down on her nails. There are officers everywhere; Holly is surrounded by guns and badges and blue polyester, a site that should be comforting, but she doesn't notice that either.
When the residents come out, it takes Holly a moment to realize they are speaking to her. She tries to focus, but everything is fuzzy, like when she doesn't wear her glasses. Someone grabs her hand, pulling her back to reality. When she looks up, she sees Nick standing next to her. He guides her back to a chair and makes her sit down before explaining everything again. Gail was shot. The bullet tore through her subclavian artery. She lost a lot of blood, but they were able to stabilize her. She's in surgery now and will be for another couple of hours. Chances are she won't wake up until the following morning. She should go home. Get some sleep. Someone will come stay with her. Nick gives Holly a sad smile and squeezes her hand again. He knows there is no way she is going to leave. So they sit. And sit. And sit. Holly's not sure how long they wait, but the longer they do, the more her head spins. She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, just like she used to as a kid. Because maybe, if she can hold on a little bit longer, she can stop herself from shattering into pieces.
Maybe she falls asleep. Holly can't be sure. Right now everything feels stuck halfway between dreams and reality. One minute she is staring a hole through the ugly, stained carpet and the next it's as if her life flashes before her eyes. Holly sees her six year old self sitting cross-legged in one of the oversized armchairs in the living room. Her eyes had danced across the pages of Charlotte's Web, soaking in every word. Every now and then her glasses would slide down her nose, forcing Holly to set the book face down on the arm rest so she could adjust them. But she always picked the book back up. Most nights she read until she fell asleep, her dreams filled with pirates and sword fights and magical wardrobes, and woke up with a book crease on her face and the taste of magic still on her tongue.
Next she sees her parent's house, the house she grew up in. The old swing on the porch, bookshelves lining the walls of the living room and the smell of cinnamon and apple cider coming from the kitchen. There were cleats in the hallway, textbooks on the kitchen table and what seemed like a never-ending supply of chocolate chip cookies. Holly intentionally chose the room in the attic because of the skylight above her bed. There were billions upon billions of stars in the sky and on clear nights, it seemed like she could see each and every one of them.
She remembers what it had been like to grow up with two older brothers. Matty and Ethan had teased her to no end, but they were also incredibly protective. They had taught her how to ride a bike and hit a baseball. Holly had never played sports, but she loved watching her brothers play. She went to every single one of their games, whether it was football or hockey or baseball. Without question Matty and Ethan were her two favorite people on the planet and she loved them both fiercely. Sometimes it even felt like those two knew her better than she knew herself. They knew the best way to make her laugh was to bust out their impressions of Mom and Dad and that there were some days when she just wanted to be left alone.
Then there was the night Holly came out to her parents; it had been the most terrifying experience of her life. Her hands were visibly shaking and she could hear the sound of her heart beating in her chest, as if it was threatening to breakthrough her rib cage and jump out of her body. It had been one thing telling her brothers, but Mom and Dad... she cringed just thinking about what their reactions might be. Holly forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat and just get it over with. After saying everything in one long breath, Holly let her head slump forward; she couldn't bear to look, to see their reactions. After what felt like hours, she felt her mom pull her into a bone crushing hug. Her dad had smiled, kissed the top of her head, and said he knew. They both knew. They had just been waiting for her to tell them. Holly wiped away the tears she didn't realize had fallen down her cheeks and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The Earth hadn't stopped spinning just because she told her parents that she was a lesbian. God hadn't struck her house with lightening. There was still hockey and ice cream and science and all the other things Holly loved. Everything was just as it was before.
But coming out to her family didn't seem to make school any easier. Holly had always been the quiet, nerdy type who walked around carrying a stack of heavy textbooks and spent her lunch period in the Library. It wasn't that she didn't like her peers. No. It was more like she didn't understand most of them. It was hard for her to understand why the other girls spent all day talking about makeup and Leonardo DeCaprio. In her mind it didn't make for good conversation, but it worked for them and that probably confused Holly the most. It's not that she didn't have any friends, she just felt that, despite her best efforts, she never really fit anywhere. College was better though and medical school, even better than that. Holly started to really understand what it felt like to trust relative strangers. To get to know them and build relationships and share secrets and stories. The normalcy of it all was exhilarating. And the medicine. Wow. Even at the beginning of first year, almost the minute she stepped into the Cadaver Lab, Holly knew it was exactly where she belonged. While everyone else spent third and fourth year agonizing over their specialties, she submitted her application the first chance she could. Sure it was a little weird that she chose Forensic Pathology. Didn't most people go into medicine to work on living people? But Holly saw it differently. She had the privilege of speaking for the dead; of telling their stories even if they couldn't. And in her opinion, there was a quiet kind of heroism in it.
Oliver's gentle shaking pulls her back into consciousness; she really had been asleep after all. The residents are back with more news. They look about as tired as Holly feels, but they seem relieved and smiles creep across their faces. The surgery went much better than expected. Gail is in recovery now and her vitals are stable. The anesthesia hasn't worn off yet, but she should be awake within the next few hours. And when they finally say that someone can follow them into recovery to see her, all eyes turn to Holly.