You stalk down the hallway of the Fifteen, so mad at her you can barely see. Your face must betray you, because no one stops you to say hello, to inquire how you've been. You see the people you've grown to consider members of your own family, you see colleagues and coworkers. But they all give you a wide berth, scurry out of your way. Now is not the time for pleasantries.

Gail once said that your anger was like a tropical storm.

Well, Hurricane Holly is about to make landfall.

You see her standing in the hall, laughing at something Detective Swarek is re-enacting for Oliver.

It's obvious enough what story he's telling.

The same one you just heard from your intern, who heard it from Danny at the security desk, who heard it from a uniform dropping some evidence off at the lab earlier.

The person you didn't hear it from?

The person you should have heard it from?

The woman you wake up with every morning. The woman you fall asleep with every night.

That's who should have told you about the morning's events.

And from the way you see the smile fade from her face as she sees you approach, she damn well knows it.

"Officer Peck, a word," you say coolly as Swarek nods at you and departs.

Oliver looks like he wants to do the same, but sticks around instead, eyes flicking back and forth warily between you and Gail.

"Hey Hol," she says slowly, the way prey in the wilderness think they can stave off a predator by just standing still. It doesn't work for Gail any better than it works for the meerkats.

When it becomes apparent that her 'if I don't move you can't see me' tactic isn't going to save her, she tries to appeal to Oliver by mentioning something about a report she should get working on.

Oliver, though, is a smart man. A smart man with a girlfriend, a daughter, and an ex-wife. He knows better.

"Oh, don't you worry, darling, that report'll keep," he says, looking over at you.

Yes, he's a smart, smart man.

"Excellent," you say with a smile that is entirely forced before turning back to Gail, "Officer Peck?"

There's a look that just might be fear in her eyes as you push her into the women's locker room and shut the door behind you. The room is empty, for which you're grateful. Because you'd rather keep the full-extent of your very red-blooded temper from becoming public knowledge. At the very least, you don't want an audience.

"Okay, so listen," she starts, trying to explain, trying to head off the storm.

But you're beyond the point where your anger can be appeased. There are lightning bolts sparking behind your eyes, in your fingertips. The air just prickles with the electric current of your fury.

This tempest will rage.

"What were you thinking," you whisper fiercely, wanting to shake her, wanting her to feel the nervous, terrified energy that you're barely managing to control.

She blinks up at you, "Holly, I had to. It's my job. You know that."

"It's not your job to make yourself a hostage, Gail. It's not your job to negotiate with a bank robber and let him use you as a shield, Gail. It's not your job to put yourself in the line of fire when you're not protected, when you're not on-duty, when you're not wearing your fucking vest!"

Your voice gets louder with every word until you're shouting. You still can't believe what she'd done. What had almost happened.

You'd sent her to the bank that morning only because it was her day off, because you had to be to work early that morning and she had the whole day free. Any other time, any other day and you would have gone yourself. But this morning, you'd asked, and she, still soft and glowing from the wake-up you'd given her, had agreed.

And then, while waiting in line to drop off that paperwork, a man had pulled out a gun and shot at the ceiling. He wasn't there for money, which would have made it easier, he was there for revenge. Just another soul that had been pushed too far one too many times, he'd decided that taking the bank president hostage, making his plight known to the public, would tip the scales back in his favor.

But Gail, of course, Gail had gotten in his way. Gail had poked and prodded and even negotiated until the man released all the hostages but her. A police officer, she'd told him, would make an even bigger story than a bank robbery. And he'd agreed. Especially after finding out that his target was out playing golf in some charity tournament.

Soon it was just Gail and the nameless angry man with a gun to your girlfriend's head and an axe to grind. ETF had been called in, and it had only taken two hours to get the perpetrator to stand down. The incident, they'd decided, was minor. No injuries, no casualties, minimal damage to property, minimal impact on the day-to-day lives in the area.

But during those two hours your whole life had hung in the balance, and you hadn't even known.

You'd been buried in autopsies from a triple homicide the day before, with no idea that the next body to arrive could have been hers.

Until your intern had casually mentioned that she admired your calm, how she didn't think she could be so still, seem so unaffected while her lover's life was threatened.

Everything had gone fuzzy for a moment, white around the edges. You owe Anya an apology tomorrow, you know, but you weren't yourself at the time.

When you'd finally stopped shaking, when the fear coursing through your body turned hard and dark and angry, you'd hung up your lab coat for the day. After picking up your things from your office, you'd walked over to Gail's division, letting the anger burn hotter and hotter with every block.

You can feel it fueling you, feeding you.

For an hour, all you've been able to focus on is how angry you are, how stupid she'd been.

Anything to help you forget the image in your head of her, of that body you know so well, so intimately, laid out on one of your tables.

You want to yell, you want to shout. You want to shake her until she realizes just what losing her would do to you.

You want to threaten, to demand, to lay down ultimatums.

You want to tie her up, you want to lock her inside, pull her inside your skin and stitch her in, so that nothing can threaten her again. Not before going through you first.

You want to rage and roar, but standing before her, standing before this woman who is so beautifully, so perfectly alive … all the fight slips out of you, all the anger and the pain.

It isn't what you came for, but now you can't do anything else, now you're powerless to do anything else.

You need her, need to feel her pulse throb against your skin. Need her breath, hot and wet, inside your mouth. You want to taste her blood, her sweat, her tears, reassure yourself that she's real.

You lunge forward and reach out for her, pull her into you and join your lips to hers forcefully. But it's not enough, it will never be enough. You walk her back against the wall of lockers, stretching her hands above her head and pressing her into the metal.

You want to tear her apart, to expose every piece of her fragile humanity and examine it, with your own practiced hands and eyes. You want to see for yourself that she's whole, that she's here.

You want to remind her what she lives for, who she lives for.

She mumbles something against your lips as you continue to ravage her mouth. When you pull back, when you look, her lips are swollen and bruised from where you've been biting at them. She's breathing heavily, and her pale cheeks are flushed with heat, with arousal.

"Holly," she says, trying to take a breath, "Holls—"

But you press yourself against the hard line of her body, and tilt your hips into hers. You're still so angry, but there's a desperation building now. Desperation and desire.

She struggles a little against the tight hold you have her hands in, but you don't give. You're not hers to touch right now, not after she almost threw everything away. Instead you pin her against the wall of metal, press her hard up against the unforgiving steel.

"Holly," she says again, "I couldn't let him hurt—"

You're not even sure where the growl that comes from your throat originates from, but you don't let her finish. Instead you bite at her lip again, stopping her mouth. You nip at the soft skin under her jaw, her chin, before settling your lips and teeth over the faint new bruise at her neck. The perfectly round shadow that darkens her perfect skin. You look at it and your mind traces the path the bullet would have taken, the muscle and tendon it would have destroyed, the delicate bundles of nerves and bloodlines it would have torn through.

It shakes you, this mark that someone left on her, and you want to cover it with your own. You want to destroy this sign that someone else touched her, that someone else held her life in their hand, so you suck and bite, ignoring the way Gail gasps as you work your mouth against the sore bit of flesh.

It's the sound of voices beyond the door that has you looking over your shoulder, reminds you that at any moment your little cocoon could be disturbed. But you're not done, not yet.

You pull her arms back down, and take a hand in yours, trusting that she'll come without hesitation.

And she does.

You pull her into the attached bathroom, and lock the door behind you. The shower stall is small and cramped, but it's private. More private than the locker room itself anyway. You can't hear the hustle and bustle of people passing in the hall anymore, just the drip, drip, drop of water from the shower-head, and the sound of Gail's heavy, heavy breathing.

When you look at her, when you let your eyes lock with hers, you see that she gets it now, the storm that's rioting through you. You can feel her yield to you, feel her submit to your need, your control.

You take her mouth again, slip your tongue past her aching lips, and hiss when she catches it between her teeth.

Mostly submits, then.

You can work with that, you think as you keep kissing her.

When her hands begin to wander, you grab for her wrists, and guide them up, up to hold tight against the thin wall of the stall. And then, hands still covering hers, you pull yourself closer. You line your body up along her front, letting yourself rub your hard, covered nipples against the soft mounds of her t-shirt covered breasts, and slip a toned thigh to rest against her sex.

One last squeeze of her hands, and you bring down your own to tangle in her hair, to tease at the collar of her shirt, the hem. She'll stay put, you know that know. She knows what's going on.

And then with one final breath, you set out to break Gail apart.

You slip your hands under her shirt to knead at her breasts, to take her nipples between your fingers and pinch and pull, until she begins to whimper and rub herself along the muscles of your thigh. Until she begins thrusting her hips into yours, pushes her chest toward you, desperate for more contact, more and more and more.

But you're not ready for her to shatter yet, and so you back off. You bend just the slightest and exhale hot, wet air over her covered, aching nipples. And then you take one of the cotton-covered buds into your mouth, caressing it through the fabric with your tongue.

And then the other, until her shirt is marked with the wet evidence of your work. You unwind her, pull her back from the edge.

And then work her right back up again, moving your thigh slowly and deliberately against her. Tortuously slow, with a touch so light it's barely discernible.

But Gail feels it, she does. You see it in her eyes, hooded, and dark. Soon enough she's grinding down upon you, desperate for more, for you to change the angle of your leg and direct pressure against her aching, empty center.

And then you do, you slip a hand into the waistband of her pants.

God, she's wet. She's dripping for you. You swipe at her wet heat, gathering up some of the blonde's sweet slickness before trailing your fingers up to her clit. One little caress, and her whole body tenses.

The rhythm you set is unforgiving. In moments she's keening under your touch, her cries echoing against the cold tiles of the floor.

But you can't give her relief yet, and you can't stop.

Not yet.

She's straining, you know, straining to keep her control. Straining to keep from touching you, from keeping her hands high above her head. Straining not to give in to the delicious tension you're creating in her body.

Her eyes are desperate with need. With tears. With love and with sorrow.

Finally, finally, you can let her go.

You slip into her, hard and forceful, without breaking tempo, thrusting deep.

And when you feel her muscles go taut, when she rises up on the tips of her toes and turns her head toward the sky blindly, eyes pinched closed and face scrunched up in pleasure that is almost agony.

When you feel that, you let her go.

You slow your strokes, just the slightest, and curl your fingers deep inside her, rubbing hard against the spot you know sends her flying, breaks her into pieces.

And it does again today.

She comes apart, and you swear you can see into her very soul.

You're getting wet, you realize, still lost in watching her. The shower has been turned on, some bump or another, and you're both quickly getting soaked.

But it doesn't matter.

She's here, in your arms.

That's all that matters.

You'll have to forgive her for forgetting her hands, for reaching out to tangle her fingers in your hair as she collapses forward, all of her weight on you.

Just like always, you'll support her. You'll carry her.

You love her.

You fucking love her.

The anger inside you has settled into a dull, dying fire.

Soon enough it will only be embers, soon enough today will only be a memory.

"I could have lost you," you whisper into her hair as you clutch at her, as you hold her close and brush wet strands of hair out of her eyes.

For a moment, she just looks up at you, takes the whole of you in.

"But you didn't," she answers, "you didn't. I'm here. I'm right here," she repeats.

And she is. She's right here. Breathing. Heart beating. She's here in your arms, warm and whole.

You can't explain it. She's the one who should be exhausted, who should be broken. She's the one who had a gun to her neck, the one whose life had been threatened.

But after a few minutes spent catching her breath, Gail's fine. Gail's good as ever.

It's you who can barely stand, you who needs to lean on someone as the two of you change into the extra clothes Gail keeps in her locker. You who feels as weak and helpless as a newborn puppy, needing her to button up your jacket, to tie up the laces of your soggy shoes.

When you finally step out of the locker room, a red-faced rookie standing guard gives you an embarrassed nod, but you're too tired to really register it. Gail laughs, though, as she leads you out of the building and tucks you into the car. At the apartment she undresses you as she would a child, guiding your limbs into the softest of your clothes, gently braiding your hair.

And then she lays you down to bed, coming around to sit on the floor next to your side.

You can feel the exhaustion sitting heavy on your eyelids, and you want to give in to it. You want to give in so badly.

But there are things to say.

There are things that need to be said.

"I'm sorry," Gail says first, reaching out to smooth your wet hair, "I'm so, so sorry. It just happened, and before I knew what I was doing I was up. I was on my feet and talking. It's just," she inhales, struggling for the right words. "It's just, it's my job, Holly. Whether I'm wearing the uniform or not. I couldn't let him hurt those people."

You know this. You'd known it all along. You knew it yesterday, and you'll know it tomorrow.

But you almost lost her today.

You could have lost her today.

And knowing that doesn't make it any easier to accept.

But she needs to hear the words, and so you give them to her.

"I know," you whisper, "I just … I need you to come home to me. I love you, Gail. Some days I'm actually afraid of how much I love you. Because it's too big to quantify. I can't measure it. I can't calculate it. I just know that it's there. I have to trust in it. Trust that you love me enough to want to come home. That you know I love you, that you know how desperately I need you to come home to me."

Your voice trails off into silence in the dim room.

"I think that if I lost you it would ruin me. I would drown in it, in the place where you used to be. I would lose myself in the holes you'll leave in me, in my life. So you can't leave me, Gail Peck. Ever. Okay? You have to promise me, you'll come home."

You can't look up at her, you feel too open, too exposed, but you feel her take up your hand into her own.

"I swear, Holly. I will move heaven and earth to come home to you. Always."

You know she'll try. You know she will just like you know how deeply, how fiercely she loves you.

You'll just have to hope that it's enough.