Had to do one last thing. This is shorter.

Walking back into the dining room with her paintbrush, Holly asked, "Gail, do you ever think about marriage?"

Gail looked up from staining the baseboard and squinted. "Maya called?"

Holly blushed and picked up the other brush. "She says hello."

"I like your mom," smiled Gail. "I'm nearly done on this side."

"I should catch up," Holly sighed and knelt to apply the wood stain to their new baseboard. Theirs. After getting back from Toronto, Gail had gotten a new mortgage drawn up on the house and put Holly's name on it. Her reason was that it was stupid not to, and she was in love with Holly, so there.

Holly had decided that, if it was her house too, she was going to help modernize it. The HVAC and the new on-demand water heater were her contributions so far. She wanted to do more with the electricals, but they were deemed 'good enough' so she settled for stringing internet cable through the walls. Which was how she found the dry rot in the baseboards. Which was why they were replacing and staining them.

It wasn't fun work, but it was weirdly fun to do.

"I do, you know. Think about marriage." Gail stood and stretched. "I mean, I almost married Nick, the dick."

"Charming." Shaking her head, Holly eyed her work. "Why did you say yes?"

"To Nick? Tequila was involved. And I thought it would piss my mom off."

That sounded just like Gail. Holly smiled. "Did it?"

"Oh yeah," laughed Gail, and she cleaned out her brush. "Are you thinking about it? Marriage I mean."

"A little," admitted Holly. "Not in a McNally way though." She'd heard about Andy enough times to find it amusing.

Gail laughed. "I like how she got engaged to Luke by mistake."

"This is why I don't look in your gun's lock box," teased Holly, finishing the last bit of wood on her end.

"That's not where I keep it. You kissed a spot."

Cursing, Holly went back and re-applied the stain. Then her brain caught up with the full comment. "Sorry... What?"

"You missed a spot, but you got it now."

"Gail," she scowled.

But the blonde was headed upstairs and missed the look. "One more pass and we can let it sit till Sunday. Thank god. This smell is getting to me."

Holly rolled her eyes. Any time Gail avoided the question, you may as well give up. She could evade like no one's business. While she certainly talked about things a lot more, she was still ... Gail. And Gail did not trust easily. The universe had scalded her too many times, beaten her down, bashed her in for putting her faith in mortal men. So she didn't. Except she trusted Holly.

And in truth Holly forgot about the conversation, and the implication that Gail had a ring stashed somewhere, shortly thereafter. Marriage was an interesting concept, but she wasn't in a rush to get there or anywhere else. Holly liked the life she had with Gail. Everything that had fallen into place by accident was welcome and warm and safe. Even taking down a serial killer. Even suspecting that there was more to it than just Linus out there.

But even without those fears, there was enough to worry about. There was crime to solve. Like Holly's first vehicular manslaughter involving alcohol, a moose, and a Zamboni. That was so Canadian, it turned a popular meme which Gail found hilarious and would regularly print up and stick around the precinct. Gail and Juliet caught a bizarre murder of a banker found dead in the locked vault with no trace of how he got in there. That was less funny, but exceptionally time consuming.

At home, there was enough little stuff to fix at the house that they really were going non-stop for ages. The downstairs bathroom and the dining room needed modernization. The second bedroom needed to be an actual guest room and the den was turned into a full blown office.

And then.

Holly came home and found the Christmas lights up in August. The front of the house was twinkling with brilliant joy. She smirked as she walked inside. "Gail, are you bored and getting an early start on Christmas?" There was no answer. The back porch had lights on as well. "Gail?" No answer. "Please confirm existence!"

"Hey!" That was the voice of an annoyed Gail. That was the same sound as Gail made when she hammered her thumb or accidentally dropped the new window pane. "Uh, be right there."

Laughing again, Holly put her bag down. "I'm coming out, Gail."

"Can you get the car instead?"

Holly paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Gail, seriously."

The blonde showed up at the back door, holding her hand wrapped in a filthy towel. "No, seriously, I think you need to take me to the ER."

Holly looked at the towel, which was covered in blood. "What the... Honey, come here." She dragged Gail to the sink and stuck her hand under the faucet. Gail had a jagged cut on her palm and looked a bit green. "What happened?"

"I was hanging the lights and I cut my hand on the gutter..." Gail leaned forward and put her head on the edge of the sink as the water washed her cut out. "Crap, I feel nauseous and dizzy."

"Yeah, not surprised. You might need stitches." She totally needed stitches, realized Holly, getting a good look at the filthy cut. It was going to need to be picked clean.

Gail groaned. "Least it's my left hand."

Gently brushing the hairs on the back of Gail's neck, Holly sighed. "Okay, can you stand here without me for a bit?" Gail mumbled a yes so Holly ran to get a stool. "Sit. Keep your hand there. I'll be right back."

They kept a surplus of various bandages and ailment cures upstairs in the master bath. Holly had called Gail a hypochondriac once, and right now was blessing the fact that her girlfriend was so neurotic about injuries. There was gauze, absorbent pads, alcohol, and an Ace Bandage. She'd worry about Neosporin at the hospital. Snatching a towel, she headed back downstairs.

Gail hadn't moved. "Tell me we have Percocet upstairs."

If Gail was asking for the good drugs, it had to be bad. "No, and this is going to sting like hell." Holly put her kit down on the counter and then went to get an ice pack. "Okay. I'm going to pour alcohol on that, then wrap it up with the pad and the gauze."

"I hate it already," groaned Gail. But she nodded and gripped the counter. "Do it." To her credit, Gail only cursed a little as Holly poured the alcohol on the cut.

"I can't see any muscle or tendon," noted Holly, trying to be comforting. "That's a good thing."

Gritting her teeth, Gail asked, "Are you sure?"

"Well it means no surgery. Just stitches and a cast to stop you from bending your hand."

Walking into the ER with an ice pack wrapped around a towel wrapped hand covered in blood, they were bumped up in the line. When Gail put her badge down, she was kicked to the front. Holly would have chastised her, but frankly waiting for hours for treatment would have been horrific.

"Was this case related?" The young resident had out a long, thin, needle.

"No," sighed Gail. "I don't like... Holl?"

Holly took her right hand and squeezed it. "Just look at me, okay? Relax."

The resident shook his head. "Everyone hates hospitals," he said dismissively.

Gritting her teeth, Gail remarked, "I spent a week and a half in one after a serial killer locked me up in his basement."

As the resident turned pale, Holly demurely noted, "Perhaps you might try sympathy. As a conversational method."

The needle went into Gail's hand without any further commentary. "Uh, yes, yes, that's a good idea Mrs..."

"Dr. Stewart," snarled Gail. "She's a doctor. Holly, seriously, you have shitty bedside manners. He's worse."

Holly shook her head at the young man. He really wasn't bad, Gail was just in a mood. Totally understandable. "I know, honey. Can you still feel your hand?"

Gail shook her head. "My whole hand is ... That's weird and I don't like it."

The way Gail's pupils were reacting, Holly wondered if she was having a mild flashback. "Gail, look at me, okay?" The blonde nodded and fixed her eyes on Holly. "I'm right here. Dr. Junior here is going to clean your hand out properly and put antibiotics in it. You just look at me and tell me something."

Gail blinked. "Tell you? What?"

"Something... Anything." Holly noted Gail's frustration. "Tell me about how you found the house?"

"I didn't tell you?" Gail looked surprised but started to calm down a little. "When I was sleeping at Lisa's, after we talked about stuff, I thought I should. You know, take the job and move out here. So I started looking around for apartments and shit..." Gail darted a glance at her hand, swallowed, and looked back at Holly quickly. "And. Uh I couldn't find anything. They put me up in a hotel kinda place, I think it was an old safe house, until I was done with retraining. But you know me, I get bored. The second or third weekend I was there, I went to the police auction. Kinda wanted to see what everyone was getting there. The auction runner and I got to talking and he told me he had houses. He's a realtor on the side I guess. Anyway, he found it. Said it was perfect for people who hate people."

Holly smiled. "It is. I love it too. Thank you for letting me move in with you,"

Blushing, Gail smiled shyly. "I like waking up with you."

"All done," said the resident. He had a small basin filled with bits of rocks and what looked like leaves. She'd rinsed it out but there was clearly ground in dirt.

Holly eyed them and frowned. "Gail, did you fall off the ladder and land on your hand?"

"I may have?" Gail winced. "It was sort of a rush."

With a sigh, Holly envisioned how the back of their house looked like a crime scene now. "Does she need surgery?"

The resident eyed them both. "No. It's shallow enough that we can just stitch it up. But… we have a plastics guy — surgeon on staff tonight. I was going to ask him to do this so you could have, uh, well. You're a cop. You know. Need your hands?"

Arching her eyebrows, Gail asked Holly, "Did we scare him?"

"We did," confirmed Holly. "The plastics guy would be great, thank you."

Like all surgeons, the plastics guy was a little egotistical, but he swooped in and decided he could totally make it look like nothing happened. Gail was a little disappointed and asked if she could have a cool scar at least, which made the doctor laugh and promise to try and make it cool.

It wasn't until the nurse came in to set up the tray that anyone actually asked what Gail had been doing. "How on earth did you fall off a ladder at six at night?"

Gail sighed. "I was hanging Christmas lights."

The nurse burst out laughing. "Child it is August. Why the hell were you putting up lights now?"

Gail glanced at Holly. "If I said I was trying to beat the rush, would you buy it?"

Both Holly and the nurse said, "No."

Groaning, Gail leaned back. "Okay. Fine." She squirmed and reached into her right pocket. "I was trying to be romantic, but I'm just a total failure at that." Gail held out a small velvet bag to Holly.

She took the bag without thinking. "You should have known that from the whole moving in debacle," noted Holly, and she opened the bag. Metal glinted up at her.

Her heart thudded loudly. Surely Gail could hear it. Surely the nurse was about to get an EKG to check her heart. Surely ...

Gail cleared her throat. "Marry me."

The first thought that popped into her head is what she said. "You're proposing to me in the ER?"

"I was trying to propose to you in our backyard," sighed Gail.

The nurse leaned over and looked at the ring. It was a set of four princess cut diamonds, in a grid, flanked by two sapphires. "That's beautiful," the nurse oohed.

Holly nodded. "It is." She slipped the ring on. It wasn't surprising that it fit. "This is perfect, Gail," she sighed and kissed the blonde's forehead.

Gail smiled. "Yes?"

"Yes," nodded Holly, kissing Gail's lips softly. "Yes, I'll marry you, idiot." She took Gail's right hand and squeezed it. They were still holding hands and smiling a little stupidly as the doctor came back in.

At home, their home, Holly got Gail cleaned up and tucked into bed with another icepack on her hand, which had a brace and not a cast. "This wasn't how I saw my night ending," pouted Gail woozily. "I was hoping for some rewards."

Holly slid into the bed and kissed Gail's forehead. "When you're feeling better, I promise to show you a good time."

"I'll hold you to that," sighed Gail, snuggling up to Holly. "I love you. And not just because you took me to the ER."

"I love you too," smiled Holly, carefully hugging her newly minted fiancé close. "And not just because you proposed." As the evening darkness settled around them, Gail stifled a laugh. "Do I want to know?"

"Just wait," giggled Gail. "When we retell this story, you're going to point out I proposed in the ER."

Holly laughed too. She would. But it seemed a fitting way for their life to move on. "Not exactly a fairytale," she agreed. "But I wouldn't have you any other way."

Gail stared at the phone in her hand. Her index fingered hovered over the little phone icon beside the name "Elaine Peck" but she couldn't press the button.

It had been so much easier to talk to Holly's parents about this. Maya had been delighted and promised not to ask about grand babies for at least 4 years. Dieter said he was going to ask about them now, because if they were adopting, he wanted to paint the kid something special. As long as it wasn't the damn clown thing, Gail said she didn't mind what he painted.

But calling her own parents? No. That felt insurmountable.

It had been so much easier to send the invitation, which had not yet been returned. Just go to the mailbox, drop it in before your nerves kicked up, and try to ignore the nagging doubt. That doubt she was feeling right now.

Her finger shook as she pressed the icon.

One ring. Two rings. A pause. "Hello, Gail."

"Hi, Mom." Silence. "How are you?"

"As well as can be expected," said Elaine tightly. "We received your invitation."

Okay. There was that. "Oh. Good. You didn't reply so I wondered."

"Married." Elaine made it sound like a horrible thing.

"We already went over the blasé accusations, Mom. I thought… I mean, I know you probably can't come. Short notice, legal crap." She exhaled. "I'm trying not to think horrible things."

Her mother breathed across the line. "What do you want me to say?"

"Congratulations?" Gail looked over her backyard. Why did she think this would go differently? The only times her mother had called her in the last few years was when she wanted to curry a favor.

Elaine hesitated. "Are you happy, Gail?"

Gail chewed her lower lip. "You mean... With Holly or ...?"

"Holly. Does she ... Does she make you happy?"

It was, Gail decided, a surreal conversation to have with her mother. "Yeah. Yeah she does." Gail couldn't help but smile at that. "Mom... I know this is weird, but I love her."

Her mother was quiet, just her breathing. "Back when you were a rookie, I worried I wasn't pushing you enough. Pushing you to be everything you could."

"I remember," noted Gail, not kindly.

"You seem... You seem to have found some success. Professionally."

Of course Elaine would rather talk about that. "Yeah, yeah. Doing okay." She was doing more than okay. That year, Juliet had made corporal and Gail was likely to make the rank herself soon.

"Hold on ..." There was the sound of a door closing. Then another opened and closed. "Bill ... Your father is driving me to drink," admitted Elaine.

Gail eyed her phone. "Dad?"

"The kindest thing he's called you is blood traitor, sweetheart," sighed her mother. "There's no way I could come to the wedding."

I. Not we. "He won't come." Gail closed her eyes. "And ... You won't without him?"

"No," Elaine admitted. "For better or for worse, Gail. This is my life. I won't leave him."

That hurt in a new way. "You know... Once, just once..." Gail squeezed her eyes tightly. "You never picked me, Mom. You never cared about me or what I wanted or... You know, I always wanted to hear you say you were proud of me, or I'd done a good job, or that you'd take my side when Dad or someone called me a Fail Pale. But ... You won't. You never do." Gail inhaled thickly and wetly. "It hurts, Mom."

Elaine's voice was small. "I'm sorry."

"I wish you really were, Mom," sniffed Gail, struggling to keep from crying. She didn't want to give her mother the satisfaction of tears over the phone. "I wish you were sorry. I wish you would change."

"I wish I would too." Elaine sounded honest in that moment. "I... I'll talk to Bill, sweetheart."

"Don't bother. He won't change any more than you will, Mom." Gail rubbed at her nose and winced, looking down at the bandage on her left hand. The stitches were out, but it itched and tugged. "Bye, Mom."

She barely heard her mother's quiet goodbye.

Was that it? Gail covered her mouth as she cried. This was her life. This was her relationship with her parents, which was to say not at all. Her father was mad she wouldn't lie for him. For them. Her mother stood by her father. No. This had always been her life. She was always the lesser Peck, the failure. The one who strolled through life without a goal. The one who never heard 'good job.'

Her parents wouldn't call when she was promoted to Detective. They wouldn't call when she was engaged. They wouldn't come for her when she lay in a hospital bed, having nearly died. They wouldn't come now for a moment where she was going to say 'I do' to the most wonderful person Gail had ever met. They would never meet Holly. There might be kids down the line, and they were never going to know the Pecks.

And it hurt. It shouldn't hurt to have people who always let you down let you down again. But God, it cut at her chest, flayed her liver open, and left her chained to the rocks for the birds to eat her soul.

She let the pain swallow her for a time, crying on her back porch like a sad, lonely woman. The hurt of being the unwanted settled around her shoulders. She knew this pain. She had grown up with this kind of agony, the kind that sunk in and made every breath hurt.

By the time Holly got home, she'd stopped crying but she couldn't speak. The kitchen door opened. Without saying anything, Holly crossed the deck and sat down next to Gail, holding a box of donuts and two cups of coffee. She settled the donuts on the step between them and leaned into Gail's shoulder.

Eventually Gail found her voice. "How'd you know today was an eat my feelings day?"

Holly pulled her phone out. "I have a very disturbing apology text from your mother, whom I didn't know had my number by the way, telling me she was sorry and to get you a Hawaiian donut."

"Malasada. It's Portuguese," sighed Gail. She opened the box. "I didn't give her your number."

"I know," Holly handed over a coffee. "It's that sugar fest latte crap you love."

Gail sipped the coffee and closed her eyes. "You're going to be a really awesome wife, Holly," she whispered.

A warm brown hand wrapped around hers, holding the coffee with her. "I hope so."

"They're not coming," she told Holly. "And I'm ... I'm mad, and sad, and it hurts a hell of a lot more than I thought it would... And ... I just spent the last couple hours crying because I really don't know what else to do."

Holly sighed. "I don't know either, honey. But. If you want to tear out a toilet or eat tons of donuts... Or cut off all your hair and make me try to salvage it, I'll do it." She pressed her cheek to Gail's head.

Smiling, Gail reached down and pulled out a donut. "Bite." She held the chocolate old fashioned, Holly's favorites up for her. Obligingly, her fiancé took a bite. Gail took a bite next, and they shared the donut.

"How are you feeling?" Holly wiped her face off with a napkin.

"I hate my name," she muttered.

"Gail? I always liked that it wasn't Abigail," mused Holly. "Abigail is too soft. But Gail. That's a good, short, firm name for you."

"No, no, Peck. I hate that I'm Gail Peck, the Pale Fail."

Holly frowned. "You're not a failure, Gail."

"Tell them that."

Her fiancé sighed and kissed her cheek. "Do... Do you want to be a Stewart?"

She did. In so many ways Gail would love to shed the skin of Peck, tear the snake off her back and become someone new. But she wanted the other thing too. Gail swallowed and admitted the truth. "I want to make them regret it," she whispered. "I want to make them look and see me, the last Peck, the one who is better than they are, and I want them to hurt."

Holly nodded slowly. "They should," she agreed. "Because they're missing out on the best Peck out there."

"You're a little biased," smiled Gail.

"Doesn't mean I'm not right."

The wedding was going to be small. That had been her idea.

Holly didn't feel the need for a large wedding, and as long as Gail agreed not to try and hang the lights on her own, she was perfectly happy having it in the back yard. But it had to be small. They could invite five people each, and Nick and Juliet were a freebie for them both. Gail called it a punishment.

Since the lights were, mostly, strung already, Nick helped Gail get the rest set up and they mailed the invitations out by the end of the week after the proposal. Small wedding, quick wedding. Juliet had teased them, asking who was pregnant. Gail had punched Juliet's shoulder and told her to hang the damn lights.

It all came together though. They had less than five weeks to sort it all out and, by the end of week three they were all on track. Even with Gail's mini breakdowns in the middle, freaking out about not being sure she was going to be a good wife and then having her mother kick her while she was down, they managed to get it all in order. Friends, family, a Justice of the Peace, and a pretty as fuck backyard.

There was just one more thing Holly needed to do for herself and for Gail to make it perfect. She told Gail and got a surprised look from the blonde. It was clearly not something Gail had been prepared for. After asking if Holly was sure, and being informed that she was, Gail agreed to help out and get things done. It took them days to get there, but they did.

Holly's parents had been pretty whatever about it, though Drew had been shocked. It hurt him the most and Holly knew it would, so when he came out to help them prep for the last week, she made sure to sit him down and explain. Because just as it had been important to him and her when they were children, this was important to her and Gail now.

If anyone understood the ties that bound you beyond blood, it was her family. Over the years, their parents had helped more than a dozen foster children. Even now, if someone needed a home, theirs was always open. Official, unofficial, it didn't matter. Children were loved and treasured. Alicia, their other most serious foster sister, was still a sister in their hearts.

But Gail, Gail was different. Holly had clung to her parents like a drowning man, a sense of stability and peace in her turbulent life. And in turn they had supported and carried her through a rocky childhood, a tumultuous teenhood, awkward adolescence, and finally now into a stable adulthood.

Maybe it was their fault, their free spirits and lack of what others called 'normal,' that had made Holly so willing to move across the country time and again. Maybe the wanderlust they instilled in her was the cause for her rootless life. Sometimes Holly wondered if she could be stable, stay put, and keep Gail out of a tree.

Then she thought of her time in med school in Toronto. She thought of the years she spent with Lisa and Rachel. The work and the drive. And Holly realized the truth of it all. When she wanted a thing, when she loved it beyond measure and compare, she would change the essence of her very being to keep it.

And that was the love she had for Gail.

She had to be there for her strange, skittish, prickly, Peck. No one, not even her parents, had changed her as much as Gail had. No one had made her want to change as much. No one touched her head, heart, and soul like Gail did.

Her hope was, one day, Drew would find someone like that too. Someone who made things feel complete. Not perfect, because what ever was? No. But good, and right, and proper.

Once Drew was on board, and still miffed he couldn't be her best man (that went to Lisa, who won the bet with Rachel about who proposed), she knew all was well. Her family, blended and weird as it was, was going to be exactly what she'd always needed, if perhaps not what she'd wanted as a child.

The night before the wedding, their house was empty. Everyone told them to stay in separate rooms, make it more special, but near midnight Holly came in from the guest room where she'd spent so many nights before. It had been lonely and empty. Gail, not opening her eyes, lifted the sheet of their bed. Holly slid in, taking the big spoon spot, and sighed.

Everyone else's myths and superstitions could shove it. This was theirs. This was how they'd always lived. Gail, the Peck who did things her own way without shying away. Holly, the doctor who loved puzzles and art and softball.

"Tomorrow," whispered Gail.

"Tomorrow," replied Holly.

And they said no more.

Tomorrow would be the first day of what was next.

The wedding was small.

Holly's parents, her brother, Rachel, and Boob Job came in the week before. Gail's brother came, with Traci and Leo. Not together together, just on the same flight. Steve also came with a parole officer. Nick and Juliet were there, but they were local. Oliver and his wife Celery made it as well, at the last minute.

Twelve people. That was small, and Gail was okay with it.

The build up to the wedding was stressful enough, with having to tell everyone that they were getting married. For all Holly had been reluctant to tell people they were dating again, she'd updated her Facebook status to 'Engaged' while they were still in the ER. There was no hiding anything. The entire universe knew they were engaged by the time Gail came down from her ER high.

But that was good. It felt right that their world learned about it in such a boring, normal way. It was like everyone and everything took the moment to make Gail normal. She never felt normal. It was really nice.

She'd never wanted the big weddings her parents had pushed at her. That was probably why she'd accepted Nick's proposal to run off to Vegas. Of course, that had ended wonderfully badly (his motorcycle was the victim in the end), and Gail had felt jaded about relationships ever since. While he was the one who skipped out, she always worried it was, in some small part, her fault.

It didn't help that he told her she wasn't exactly girlfriend material later on. Shit like that hung on and around you. It was like tequila, encouraging you to do bad, wrong, things just to feel a little alive and like you existed.

Gail knew she hadn't been a saint. The whole mess with Fifteen flipping and thinking she was suddenly a hero had been hard to stomach because she'd done some fairly bad things. She'd intentionally shoved them away, hurt them, and left them just because it was so, so much easier to be hated. She couldn't stand them loving her for the exact same reasons they'd hated her.

For years, they'd never had her back. And for years, she'd bitten them and intentionally hurt them before they could hurt her. It was a savage relationship that Gail had with Fifteen and it was her own fault. She'd let herself lash out at them the feelings she'd had for her family for her entire life. Always, Gail had been left out and cut out of the family. She'd been treated the same by Fifteen and she'd reacted the same.

The closer they got to the wedding, the more the old fears of inadequacy and failure bit at Gail. It nipped her heels like a yapping puppy, demanding her attention and punishing every misstep. Just like being a Peck. Was she going not be able to be a good wife? Was she she a bad girlfriend for Holly? Gail lived a much more dangerous, risky, life than many people. Didn't Holly deserve better?

That nagging doubt and fear grew worse every day they inched closer to the wedding. Every moment that passed, Gail became obsessed with the idea that she was going to fail this, fail Holly. She was just sure that everything was going to fall apart and be worthless. That Holly would wake up and realize how much better she could do, and leave. Again.

But she knew she wasn't the Gail who'd stupidly walked out on Holly at the Penny. She wasn't about to self-sabotage herself into losing the best person, the best thing that had ever happened to her. She loved Holly. She had to tell her. Because if they were a pair, a partnership, then this came with that.

They'd been lying in bed listening to the rain on the bedroom deck on a beautiful, grey, morning, when Gail found the courage to say something. Holly was awake and absently toying with a frayed thread on the quilt Maya had made them. Gail swallowed and said she wanted to talk about something.

She started by telling Holly about her childhood, growing up under Steve's shadow. The golden boy. Steve did everything right. And Gail? She was the Pale Fail. She was always doing it wrong. Nothing was the way her parents wanted her to be. At a certain point Gail just stopped trying to meet their expectations. She tried to be herself. But her revolution never went far. Even failing the entrance exam hadn't worked. So she'd fallen into life with no plan and no direction and no gusto. And then... Then there was a smart, funny, weird, woman and she liked her.

The smart, funny, weird, woman hugged her close and said that she never wanted something uncomplicated. Holly whispered fiercely that one of the things she loved about Gail was that she went back out there. She loved that Gail did the right thing. She loved that Gail hated liars and fake people. And she loved that Gail fought back.

Gail couldn't remember other people saying that. There may have been tears.

The boost of confidence made dealing with wedding prep easier. They kept everything as small as possible. There was no priest for their wedding. Just a simple legal ceremony at the courthouse with their friends and then a dinner party at the couple's house. Traci and Maya cooked the dinner while Gail listened to Holly tell the story about how Gail sliced her hand open and had to propose in the ER. Yeah, she knew that story was going to go around. Leo wanted to see the scar, as did Boob Job, who admitted the plastic surgeon did a good job.

Things with Steve and Traci were awkward and uncomfortable. Neither knew how to behave around the other, which Gail really understood. She wasn't sure where she stood with her brother either. It was clear though that Steve didn't know where he stood with himself. How strange to be the one who liked what she saw in the mirror. But she did. Gail really liked who she was and what she did.

Especially when, that morning, she'd studied her own face in the mirror and noticed her fiancé covertly eying her from the other end of the bathroom with that silly smile on her face.

Juliet had been right. It was a lot easier to look at yourself in the mirror when you respected yourself and the choices you made. Gail had never been able to stomach liars, except in herself. She'd been phenomenally good at lying about everything, from wanting to be a cop to not being in love with Holly. Thank god she'd stopped.

It was so much easier to be yourself when things didn't hurt all the time. There were still rough times, but they were survivable.

When Oliver showed up, the day of the wedding, he pulled her aside to chat and said he'd noticed. He saw the difference. And while he apologized for making her a bit of a her in Toronto, he wanted her to know how proud he was. He'd watched her make the impossible choices, the hard choices that pushed everyone and everything away from her. And he respected her for it.

Better than being a hero by far was that feeling. Respect. Even stupid McNally sent a wedding present because she respected Gail.

It was a feeling Gail had never had before, but she liked it. It started to patch up the gaping maw of agony her parents had left her with.

The lack of her parents in attendance didn't bother Gail, and she actually felt that way. Beside the fact that they weren't permitted to leave Ontario, they hadn't replied to the invitation Gail sent about the wedding. Not even to say no. She hadn't hoped for anything. If there was one thing she'd learned, they wanted her to follow the Peck party line. Still. And she wasn't going to.

But even so, Gail kept her name. She and Holly talked about that for hours, if they should change their names or not. In the end, Gail had gone with Peck and Holly had gone with Peck as well. Which frankly was a little weird but totally hilarious. They were absolutely not the Pecks that Elaine and Bill wanted.

That was the point though, felt Gail. They were different Pecks and they weren't Toronto Pecks. They were the Pecks left standing who could start everything new and build everything back up. If they wanted to. Or they could just be a married couple named Peck. A name that meant nothing in Vancouver.

When Oliver had asked Holly why she took the name, given all the grief it could cause, Holly had smiled that silly, quirky, smile. "I took the name," she said softly, taking Gail's hand and squeezing it. "I took her name because I didn't want her to be the last Peck standing."

The End.