It had been a week of sleeping badly, a week to cry, a week to try to heal. Roll call in Parade looked just as ragged as Gail felt, officers huddled over their coffee in near silence. Oliver was at home, still experiencing blinding headaches, vertigo, and disorientation brought on from his head injury. Sam was improving slowly, still hooked up to a million tubes and machines, Andy at his side. Epstein was back, looking like a shadow of his former wimp, nerd self, which didn’t say much. Chloe still hadn’t woken up, parts of the clot had gone to her brain, but the doctors said it would be imposable to fully assess the damage until if, no, when she regained consciousness. After a confrontation with Chris that nearly came to blows, Wes wasn’t allowing anyone from the 15 to visit her. Although she tried to hide it, this made Gail sad and angry.

Frank arrived looking crisp and in control, as always. Stepping up to the podium he said,
”I know this has been a rough week for all of us, but I need you to pull it together, to honor our fellow officers by being our very best out there. I would like to thank everyone who has put in the extra time, volunteered for double shifts and covered for those of us who can’t be here. Sleet, freezing rain, and snow will continue through the weekend. The weather has been creating traffic problems all night, please be extra careful on the roads. This is what we do. Let’s all come home!”

Gail sighed. She missed Holly. She hadn’t seen her for over four days, and it looked like there would be no time in the near future. She glanced at the board to discover she was riding with Nick today.

Great. Just great.

”Hey Gail,” Nick approached, ”looks like we’re…”

”Don’t.” She said, holding up her hand in the universal stop position, and giving him her iciest look. ”Just don’t.”

She stalked from the room.

By the time she reached the cruiser, he was already in the driver’s seat. She remembered how she used to love it when he would insist on driving. Now it simply irritated her.

“Gail, since we will be stuck in the car together all day..” He began