A/N This is my first Rookie Blue fic, and I've been away from writing for a while, so we'll see how it goes! It will have four or five chapters judging by what I already have down on paper. I'm British, and so is the friend I conned into beta reading, so please excuse any language that doesn't ring true for Canadians. This story is set after 5x07, because that's the last episode I've seen, so depending on what has been going on since it may well deviate from canon!

'Man plans, God laughs' was a saying Gail Peck tended to agree with...and she figured it worked the same for women too. Generally Gail went solidly against the family training and deliberately didn't think too far ahead. Big plans, small plans; they all fell by the wayside when hit with the reality of life. It's why she didn't go food shopping – how does anyone know what they wanted for dinner three days in advance? Gail knew all too well that whenever she did had a set plan in life, it tended to get derailed by one thing or another. Or even several things in one go, which is essentially how tonight had been so far, and how she ended up outside this door.

A couple of hours earlier she had marched into the locker room with her evening all planned out. Get changed, get out, get to the Penny, get drunk. Tomorrow would be nothing but a raging hangover, but she figured when you've got three days in a row off, you could afford to waste one sleeping off the tequila. It had been a long shift; a jogger had stumbled across a body in the park, 15 were first on scene and it quickly turned into a murder investigation. Gail and Dov had been called in along with most of the other officers, and had spent hour upon hour doing door to door canvassing in the area around the vic's home address with nothing to show for it.

Gail didn't mind being busy; in fact recently she had been craving it, but the oppressive air that had crept through the Division today had affected her. The radio chatter had bounced through the group and it had quickly gotten around that it was a bad one. Subdued whisperings in the corridors of the station, grim nods between colleagues...it may have been people's way of doing their jobs professionally but Gail hated it. Every bit of it reminded her of how it was after the abduction, and it had been the same after the recent shootings. After Perik, Gail's way of dealing with everything was to ignore it all and pretend nothing had happened. She was good at pretending, she'd had a lifetime of practice but she had always known deep down that it wasn't working. After Ford she had been better; she had been a part of the group and she had shared their pain. She had even shared her own; mainly with Holly but also with her friends. That had kind of ground to a halt since she had wrecked things with Holly of course, although she wasn't going to forget how it had felt to actually let people in. Still, when all was said and done, when it was time for cleansing the mind, alcohol was the best way of doing that as far as Gail Peck was concerned. Hence the plan.

Gail tore her vest off and yanked open the door of her locker, slamming it violently back against it's metal neighbours. It was the resulting flinch that caught her eye and made her realise she wasn't alone, and that was the first point her plans began to change. Andy took a deep breath when she realised someone hadn't just tried to smash her head in with a locker door, before shutting her eyes and leaning back against the benches from her position on the floor. Gail surveyed her colleague impassively. There was no polite way of saying it – McNally looked awful. Her arms were wrapped securely around her kneecaps and she gripped the sleeves of her sweater tightly in each hand. Her left foot tapped out a staccato rhythm on the tiled floor, but her head was perfectly still and she looked like she was focussing on each and every breath.

Gail watched out of the corner of the eye, thinking it through as she slowly undid the buttons of her uniform shirt. Should she say something? She had called an uneasy truce on McNally – ever since the shootings it just seemed a little petty to continue the animosity. They weren't friends, but they were colleagues again and they had begun to get back to civil greetings and casual conversation. If she was honest with herself, Gail wasn't sure whether it was the shootings that had prompted this, or whether it was Holly's influence, but she didn't really want to delve into what that meant. Just because Holly seemed like one of those people who were constantly moving onwards and upwards, didn't mean that Gail should be! Gail liked petty, she enjoyed it and she was extremely good at it. But still. Andy had once been sort of a friend and when things were good with Holly, Gail has almost accepted that Andy had done her a favour by taking Nick away...the blonde officer shook her head to wipe out this train of thought. Don't go there Peck. "Hey" she offered tentatively, still not looking over at the woman sat on the floor.

"Hi Gail" came the quiet response. Shit. Gail couldn't deal with this. Whipping her phone out of her pocket, she fired off a quick text before swapping her undershirt for a looser, plain top.

'Get down to the locker room, McNally is looking like someone's kicked her puppy down the stairs and I don't know what to say to her'

Her phone bleeped almost immediately;

Nash: 'Can't. Checking out a lead. Look after her Gail, she needs it today.'

"Damn it" muttered Gail under her breath. She ignored Traci and forwarded the same message off again to her only other choice when it came to workplace counselling. She had time to finish getting changed and was pulling on her boots when the second reply came;

Oliver: "Man up Peck. Back up your fellow officer".

Gail: "Oliver, you know I'm not good at this touchy feely stuff. What if it's a Sam problem!? I don't think I can pretend to care."

Oliver: "Andy was first on scene today. Like you were last month."

Oh. Gail sighed and, for the first time, looked directly at McNally who was still in the same position. She was tempted to walk away and leave it, but in the pit of her stomach she felt a hint of the same helpless despair she had experienced on the evening of Trina's death. She had gone home and cried her eyes out in her room, wishing for someone to come and tell her it was ok. Wishing that Holly was there. Gail steeled herself, shuffled over and sat down on the bench opposite Andy.

"Bad day, huh?" she asked.

Andy looked up and nodded slowly. "The worst" she said.

That didn't give Gail much to work with, but she'd gotten this far and decided she might as well go all in and ask a question that had potentially never passed her lips before. "Are you ok?"

Even in her state, McNally looked a little surprised at that query. She rubbed a hand over her face before answering, "Yeah...no. I don't know. It was a tough one and I'm just feeling drained".

"Right," Gail replied, her mind at a loss as to what to say next. Andy watched the unease spread across the blonde's face, and couldn't help wondering why on earth Gail was checking up on her. "I'm alright Gail. You can go home, you don't need to worry about me," she told her former friend.

An irritated look flashed across Gail's face. "I'm not worried about you. It's just the cleaners will be here soon, and they can't work with you taking up all this floor space!" she retorted. Andy couldn't help but give a small grin in response. Gail wrinkled her nose and tried again, "Look McNally. I hear this morning was bad and you were there. I'm just making sure you're not sitting here about to fall apart about it. So if you want to talk about it, then I'm listening,"

Andy nodded. "I'm not falling apart. I'm just feeling a bit empty, you know? We're not rookies anymore Gail, and you go out there thinking you've seen it all and know it all. I honestly thought nothing could shock me any more, but this morning...it was awful. And I felt like I was back in my first week, trying to get my head round why people can be so vile".

"This is why I hate people," Gail said, half to herself, but Andy laughed loudly at that.

"Maybe you've got the right idea Peck," she mused.

"Nope. The right idea is the Black Penny, and lots of shots. Coming?" Gail asked. She had been looking forward to a solitary session, but made an on the spot decision that company wouldn't be too bad. She knew what Andy meant. Their job meant they constantly saw the worst in people and it was hard not to focus on that. If it got awkward, she could always ditch McNally, there was bound to be someone else in there they knew.

Andy hesitated for a moment then shoved herself off the lockers and agreed, "Sure. Let's get out of here!"

...

As the women left the locker room, they came across the second point in which Gail's plan shifted further off track. Strutting around the corridor like he owned the place was Duncan, phone in his hand as always, only this time he was using it to talk to someone, not just to take mindless photos.

"Dude, it was crazy. This chick had been smashed, I'm telling you. The guy who found her had passed out he was so scared, some of the cops were sick, hell, even the hot forensic doc was freaking out! It was the most screwed up thing I've ever seen!"

Andy and Gail looked at each other in complete disbelief. Gail could see the anger building in the brunette's eyes and she was pretty sure that in the next thirty seconds, Gerald would be needing medical attention. She just didn't know whether it would be thanks to Andy, or herself. They turned together and marched over to the rookie. Gail tapped him sharply on the shoulder, and as he turned, Andy ripped the phone out of his hand. Duncan stretched out a hand to grab it back, but Gail leant closer and elbowed him neatly in the ribs.

"Who is this?" Andy demanded into the phone. The reply clearly didn't mean anything to her as she asked the voice on the other end "so Marcus, you're a friend of Duncan's?" Gail heard a 'yeah' squeak from the phone before the voice started to bluster into a longer sentence, but Andy cut them off, "Well, dude, you'd better stay on the line and listen up to this, because Duncan here has got a couple of other things you ought to know". She took the phone away from her ear and looked straight at Moore.

"Firstly, Rookie, the 'chick' you were just talking about? She was a real person, with a life and friends and a family and it's all ended in the worst possible way. You are a disgrace, talking about her like that. This is not a game, asshole. You do not joke around about victims – you show them respect, or so help me God I will get you fired, whatever it costs me,". Andy paused to catch her breath, and Gail decided to get involved.

"Secondly, Gerald, I don't know what they teach you kids in the Academy these days, but you are talking about an active investigation with a member of the public. Now, if you can root through the dusty corners of your miniscule brain, and remember the code of conduct you signed up to, that actually is a breach of confidentiality, and will result in disciplinary action," she told him.

Duncan looked as though he was about to say something, but before he could open his mouth, Andy jumped in, "Thirdly, I don't know where this excitement has come from, and frankly I'm disgusted by it, but it seems a little strange, considering when you arrived as back up this morning, you took one look at the victim and puked your breakfast up over your own shoes. You then sat crying in the back of your cruiser for an hour before refusing to go the morgue because you 'didn't think you could take it',"

Gail lifted her eyebrows at this, and Andy confirmed it with a wry nod of the head. The blonde officer stepped in tight to Duncan and got into his face. "Lastly, Rookie, if I ever hear you talking like that again about any of the officers here, or our people in forensics , then it won't be getting fired you need to worry about. Because I will break your stupid neck." She started directly into Duncan's startled face, letting him see the anger in her own stony blue eyes, before stepping back. Andy lifted the phone to her ear again.

"Did you get all of that, Marcus?" Andy asked the now silent voice. "Good," she stated, before swiping across the screen and ending the call. "Is that all clear Duncan?" she enquired in a low voice. The rookie was staring at the floor, but nodded briefly.

"I didn't mean to..." he started to say, but this time it was Gail who cut him off.

"Think about it Gerald. Just think about it," she told him, before tugging on Andy's tensed arm. "Come on McNally, we have places to be," Andy held out Duncan's phone toward him, but on impulse, Gail grabbed it first and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. She smirked slightly as it hit the bottom and instead of a metal clang, she heard the tell tale squelch that meant someone's half eaten lunch had softened the impact. Andy and Gail started to walk away, but as they reached the double doors, Gail turned back and ran her eyes over the crestfallen rookie.

"Oh, and Gerald? Take a shower. You stink," she smiled sweetly and exited the building after McNally.