Chapter Text
They pull out onto the street, and ride in silence through the downtown area. It’s late enough that most of the restaurants and pubs are closed, although light, laughter, and music spill out of a handful of the more dedicated nightlife establishments. Julie chances a glance over at Gill when they’re stopped at a light; she’s sitting with her head resting on the passenger window, vaguely staring out into the night, a hand absently worrying at the seatbelt where it rests on her collarbone. Julie shifts her eyes back to the street ahead as the light turns, tries to push down the ache.
“I hate feeling porous.” Gill’s voice is so quiet, so reflective, that it almost disappears into the hum of the car’s engine, the muted thrum of the tires meeting the road. As such, it takes Julie a minute to process that Gill has spoken.
“Sorry?” Julie asks.
“Feeling porous. I hate feeling porous.”
“What d’you mean?”
“You know. Like everything I see can just seep in and become part of me.” Gill is leaning back against the headrest now, her eyes closed.
“Mm,” Julie answers. “I guess I hate that feeling too.” She taps her fingers on the steering wheel a few times. “Feel that way quite a lot, actually.”
Gill opens her eyes and straightens up a bit. “Yeah. See, and that’s the difference between us. You’re soft.”
Julie’s grip stiffens on the wheel. “What?”
Gill leans back again. “Christ. Sorry, Slap. That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean…” Gill trails off, gesturing vaguely.
Julie breathes out a wry laugh. “And what did you mean, exactly?”
Gill rubs her temple, her brow furrowed. “I mean, you do feel sorry for the tossers sometimes. Don’t you?”
“I suppose, yeah.”
“Right. And you think about what made them the way they are and all that.”
“Yeah. Sometimes.” Julie laughs drolly. “Often,” she corrects herself.
“Okay. Right. Well, I’m not like that, Julie.” Gill puts a hand on Julie’s arm, and Julie looks toward her, finds Gill’s eyes wide and earnest looking back into her own. “Sorry. Still not trying to insult you,” Gill says softly.
Julie smiles at her briefly before turning her attention back to the road. “I know. I think.”
Gill lets her hand fall back into her lap. “Right. Well, I used to be proud of that detachment, like it made me more professional somehow. More fair.”
“It probably does,” Julie says.
“Does it?” Gill shakes her head. “I’m not so sure. I think I just deluded myself into thinking I was impervious to all the fear and hurt, all the evil, when in actuality it’s been seeping into me since day one on the job.” Gill shakes her head. “It’s made me hard, Julie.” Gill’s face is definitely hard as she stares out the window. “And Helen Bartlett died because I couldn’t see that,” she finishes bitterly.
Oh. Julie feels her stomach drop. “Surely that’s a bit of a leap, Gill.”
Gill fixes Julie with a fierce stare. “Is it?”
Julie pulls the car over, slipping it into park, then turns to face Gill. She can hardly bear the look on Gill’s face, all anger and disgust. There’s something else there, too; Julie thinks it might be fear.
This whole thing is harder now that Gill seems to have run out of tears. Comforting a crying friend is one thing. But this? Julie wants to bandage it, to tell Gill she’s done nothing wrong, to make it go away. But she knows that this conversation matters and that brushing it over would probably do more harm than good.
Gill continues, “I never even tried to understand her.”
Julie feels leagues out of her depth-- aren’t moral crises the domain of therapists and priests?-- but she tries to corral her discomfort. She tentatively places a hand on Gill’s. Gill stiffens slightly, but she doesn’t pull away.
“Well, you weren’t singing her praises, that’s for sure,” Julie responds gently.
Gill lets out a hollow laugh. “No, I definitely wasn’t.”
“No,” Julie continues, running her thumb softly across the back of Gill’s hand. “But I think you did try to understand her. I mean, you came around in the end, didn’t you? In your recommendation to CPS?”
“Yes,” Gill replies stiffly.
“Right. So maybe you didn’t ever feel warm and fuzzy about Helen. But you were a bit more forgiving in the end, weren’t you, in your way?”
“Only because you convinced me.”
Julie sighs, leans back in her seat. “Look, Gill. None of us are islands, you know. We all need a little course correction, now and again. Even you.”
“Yeah,” Gill says softly. They sit in silence again for what feels to Julie like the hundredth time that night. It starts to rain softly, and a gentle pattering sound fills the car. “I don’t much like course correction,” Gill says finally, breaking the silence.
Julie finds laughter bubbling up out of her at that, and Gill looks over at her, the picture of surprise. Julie can’t blame her; she’s quite surprised herself at how hard she’s laughing, but damn if Gill isn’t a little hilariously predictable.
“Sorry,” Julie says, wiping her eyes, once she’s gotten a grip on herself. “It’s just, I mean, ‘I don’t much like course correction’—can we talk about the understatement of the year, Slap?”
There’s a little smile playing at the corner of Gill’s mouth. “Oh, shut up and drive me home, you slag.”
Julie punches Gill’s shoulder lightly. “Cheeky, you are. What do you think I am, your chauffeur?”
“Nah. Didn’t I just tell you?” Gill’s smirk turns into a full-on grin. “You’re my slag!”
“Oho!” Julie pulls a fake scandalized face as she puts the car back into gear and pulls out onto the road. “Didn’t know slags were expected to pull overtime driving their clients around.”
“Didn’t I put that in the job description?” Gill chirps. “Must’ve forgotten.” She looks immensely self-satisfied, and Julie feels a powerful wave of affection.
Julie swallows that down, then parries: “More like your mother forgot. Didn’t I tell you your mum’s paying me to go out with you?”
Gill swats at Julie, cuffing her rather hard on the shoulder.
“Ouch!” Julie rubs her shoulder. “What was that for?”
Gill shakes her head in overly wrought disappointment. “You’ve really got to get some new material.”
Julie rolls her eyes. “Don’t have time, Slap.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. ‘M too busy chauffeuring you around. And whoring, apparently.” Julie grins mischievously.
Gill swats her again, a little less violently this time, and Julie snickers. It’s raining harder now, and she can hardly see the road. She flicks the wipers onto a faster setting, and squints at the bright lights of an oncoming car. Her eyesight’s really not quite what it used to be. Soon, the monotonous drone of the rubber blades against the glass pulls her into a sort of reverie.
The exhaustion is creeping in again; the second they get home she’s going to tuck Gill into the guest room bed and then immediately collapse on her own bed. She briefly utters a silent prayer to the crime gods that the residents of Manchester don’t feel any particularly murderous inclinations for the next twelve hours at least; she’d sell her soul for a good night’s sleep.
Julie starts a bit when Gill breaks the silence.
“So, are you?” Gill asks. “I mean, are we?”
Julie shoots her an inquiring look, although she’s got a feeling she knows where this is going. “Could you be a bit more specific?”
“Are we going out?”
“Ah.” Julie’s heart rate quickens. Yes, Gill is going to go there.
“I mean, because I kissed you. And you kissed me. And it was…nice.” Gill is leaning her head against the window again, an absent sort of smile on her face.
“It was,” Julie agrees. A few moments pass in stupefied silence.
“So? Are we dating?” Gill asks again.
Julie laughs helplessly. “I don’t know. Are we?”
“I’d like to be,” Gill says simply.
“Right,” Julie answers.
“Right?” Gill asks.
Julie lets out a long breath. “Well I think we’ll want to double check this in the morning when we can remember how to spell our own names, but yeah, I’d say we might be dating.”
“Good,” Gill says. Julie glances over at Gill. She’s smiling a little and curling her legs up so her feet rest on the seat.
“What are you smirking about?” Julie asks.
“Janet and Rachel’ve got a bet riding on this,” Gill says sleepily.
“They never.”
“Mm,” Gill confirms. “Heard ‘em talking in the loo yesterday.”
Julie shakes her head, chuckling. “And who’s going to win that bet?”
There’s no answer. Julie casts a glance over at Gill and finds her fast asleep against the passenger window, her arms wrapped around her legs and the ghost of a smile on her face. Julie reaches into the backseat to grab her coat, doing her best to keep her eyes on the road and the car going straight. Once she’s wrangled the coat from the backseat, she awkwardly tucks it around Gill with one hand, keeping the other firmly on the wheel. She gives Gill’s knee a gentle squeeze, then reaches over to turn the radio on low. There’s a cheesy Sam Smith song playing, and she rolls her eyes. Her gaze catches on the light of the car’s digital clock. It’s 2:59 AM. Julie groans.
“I’m too old for this,” she mutters, but she can’t help the smile that creeps on her face when she hears Gill start to snore.