Heart Out

by allthegalpals

Summary:

“Doctor Gilbert?” Erin looks up and Holtzmann points to her leg. “I scraped my knee falling for you.”

Erin rolls her eyes, hoping her fake annoyance will mask her blush. “Very clever,” she concedes.

“You don’t like that one? I've got plenty more." Holtzmann takes Erin’s free hand and gazes into her eyes. Erin feels her heart rate pick up and wishes that it hadn’t. “I’m no organ donor, but I’d be happy to give you my heart.”

Medical AU where Erin is an actual Doctor and Holtzmann consistently injures herself in the name of science.

Chapter 1

Notes:

Happy 1 Year Ghostbusters Anniversary! :)

If Erin really thought about it, she’d never even wanted to be a doctor. Mostly, because the idea that other people’s lives depended on her decisions sent her mild anxiety spiking through the roof. But also because there was still a large part of her that longed to work in Physics, ached to be writing new theories and then solving equations all day long.

Physics reminded her of all the hours she used to spend with Abby in the school library, eating their lunch together and working through the extension homework tasks that the other kids simply rolled their eyes at. Abby, who had always stood up for her, yelling at the kids who sneered at Erin in the hallway and picking fights with the ones who dared joke about the years she’d spent in therapy. Abby, who from day one of their friendship believed that Erin had been haunted by a ghost every night for a year. Who said that she, like Erin, thought ghosts were real.

Abby, who believed Erin when she’d said that she was applying to study Physics at College, even though that was a complete and utter lie, because Erin knew that her parents were already pushing her through Medical School. She lied to Abby; partly because she wanted to spare them both the upset of going their separate ways in terms of careers, but also because she didn’t know what the hell she was going to do without her best friend when the time came.

Inevitably, Abby found out that she wasn’t applying to study Physics with her. When she overheard Erin’s mother gushing to one of the other parents at their High School Graduation – “Isn’t she going to be the most wonderful Doctor?” – she just looked at Erin as though she’d left her to die on a sinking ship, excused herself from the conversation and never spoke to Erin again. Erin couldn’t say she blamed her. But it still hurt. Now Abby was probably off in some incredible institution, with new friends who were professors and leading researchers studying important, real life theories rather than silly ghosts. 

And Erin's stuck in an emergency room with a barely responsive teenage girl who can hardly sit up in the bed, holding back her hair so she can vomit into a bucket. It’s a little irritating, in her opinion, to be spending her time with someone who clearly doesn’t know how much tequila is too much tequila, instead of another patient whose illness isn’t quite so self-inflicted. But still, Erin worries over her patient, double and triple checking the girl’s breathing and heart rate, finally agreeing with the nurse that they can move her somewhere quieter now that she’s stopped excessively vomiting.

It's early into her night shift, around 11pm, and there’s already been a steady stream of patients filtering in, ranging from heart attacks to a broken finger. The usual, really. Erin finishes washing her hands – she’d been wearing medical gloves, but she’s not one to take risks – and brushes down her white coat, moving on to her next patient. Erin hears her before she sees her.

“Yeah, listen I’m here now so stop complaining… yes, I’m actually in a hospital bed, there’s a nurse and everything…”

She pulls back the blue sheeting that creates a room around each hospital bed and steps inside, taking the clipboard from the nurse who shoots her a sympathetic look and rushes past her.

“No you can’t speak to the nurse! Who are you, my mom?”

Erin reads the initial assessment taken by the nurse, draws the sheeting back across to give them some privacy and looks up at her patient; Dr Jillian Holtzmann. Minor lacerations and first and second degree burns to the arms and shoulders. The woman, Jillian, is sitting up in the bed with her legs crossed and half turned so she’s facing away from Erin. Her right hand is holding a mobile phone gingerly up to her ear and her left is idly picking at a large hole in her overalls.

“You can’t speak to the nurse because she just left,” she whispers heatedly into the phone. “Yes, I agree that’s very convenient…”

Erin clears her throat as politely as she can, because the woman clearly hasn’t even noticed her yet and she feels a little awkward just stood there. Jillian whips round to face her, looking embarrassed as they make eye contact, and the first thing Erin thinks is ‘what the hell’, because the woman literally looks like she blew herself up. There are scorch marks on her overalls, a light layer of soot covering her entire body, a few strands of blonde hair look as though they’ve been singed off and there’s a trail of dried blood that’s run from her nose.

“No, listen, it’s okay, there’s a Doctor here now. I’m hanging up now…” She rolls her eyes and pulls an exasperated face and Erin can't stop herself from smiling. “Yes, I will see you tomorrow… You better not hide my blowtorches, Abby! I swear to-“

Erin hears the line click dead and Jillian stuffs her phone into her pocket, looking at her sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Erin waves away the apology and takes a seat next to the bed, clipboard in hand. “Jillian, I’m Doctor Gilbert, myself and the other medical staff will be looking after you tonight. I hope you haven’t had to wait long for your treatment this evening.”

Jillian merely nods, shifting on the bed so that she’s directly facing Erin and looks at her expectantly to continue.

A little unnerved by her silent gaze, Erin misses a beat and continues. “Before we begin, do you have any questions you’d like to ask, Jill-?” She pauses. “Can I call you Jillian?”

Jillian tilts her head to the side and considers. “I’d prefer it if you’d called me Holtzmann.”

“Okay,” Erin says, stumbling a little, because that’s pretty much the first time anyone’s answered that question without a ‘yes’. “Do you have any questions, Holtzmann?”

Holtzmann looks around warily, and then leans forward, a strand of singed hair falling across her face. “Can I eat in here?” She whispers conspiratorially.

“Oh, um, yes, please go ahead,” Erin stutters, slightly flustered by her personal space being infringed upon and not entirely sure why.

Holtzmann cracks a grin, and Erin feels her cheeks heat up a little, feeling relieved when Holtzmann starts rummaging around in her backpack. She emerges with four different tubes of Pringles, all different flavours, and shakes them all in turn, finding the one that’s the least empty and popping it open. Erin can’t help but stare because why on earth does she have four tubes of Pringles, and why isn’t she finishing the tube with the least Pringles first. Holtzmann shoves a handful of crisps indelicately into her mouth, munching loudly, and catches Erin staring at her.

“Want one?” She offers, mid-mouthful. Erin just shakes her head, and Holtzmann shrugs, stuffing more Pringles into her mouth.

Erin takes a moment to breathe. “Now, Holtzmann, tell me what’s happened to you tonight and how you’re feeling. Then I’ll assess how best to treat you, okay?”

Holtzmann nods as she swallows down the last of her Pringles. “Short story short, I was working on something, it blew up in my face – only a small poof, though – and now I’m here.” She rolls up her sleeves to show her cuts and burns, poking at them which makes Erin wince. “Doesn’t hurt too much- like I said, small poof. Normally, I patch myself up, but I’m working at this new place, the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute,” she says with pride, “and I have a new work colleague. She’s made a rule, that every time I cause an explosion I have to call her so she doesn’t freak out when she comes in the next day. So I called her, and she made me come to the hospital, on pain of hiding my blowtorches.”

“You work at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute?” Erin asks, and it’s unprofessional, but she’s excited. “You’re a scientist?”

Holtzmann laughs, but her eyes light up. “That’s all you got from that? And yes, I’m a nuclear engineer.”

“That’s so cool,” Erin says, a little wistfully. “I always wanted to be a scientist.”

Holtzmann gestures to their general surroundings in reply.

“Yeah, but-“ Erin catches herself, because as much as she wants to talk about her love for physics, now isn’t really the time. “Anyway, let me take a look at those burns,” she says quickly, pulling on a new pair of disposable gloves and beginning her inspection.

Holtzmann stays quiet, watching as Erin works through her various injuries, washing and cleaning each cut and burn, wrapping the burns lightly with bandages and using butterfly stitches on the smaller cuts. She lets out a small yelp when Erin extracts a piece of metal that had embedded itself in her left arm in one of the larger cuts, and protests when she moves to place the shard in the bin.

“Don’t get rid of it!” Erin tries not to look too incredulous. “Could come in handy,” Holtzmann says defensively, stuffing the metal into her back pack. Erin wonders what the hell else she might have in that bag.

As Erin starts to stitch up the larger cut, Holtzmann grimaces and looks a little nauseous.

“Are you in a lot of pain? Do you want me to numb it?” Erin asks quickly, worried that she’s not providing the best possible care.

“No, I, uh, just have a fear of needles,” Holtzmann confesses. “Could you… distract me? Like keep talking? I don’t like to think about it.”

“Of course,” Erin says, feeling a sense of dread, because she’s terrible at holding conversations that don’t involve her work, and it’s not like she really has any friends to practice on. Her mother rings once a week, mainly to ask if Erin’s been offered some kind of promotion or has somehow become engaged since last Wednesday morning. Erin’s not really sure if that counts as a conversation, because she rarely does any of the talking. “What would you like to talk about?”

Holtzmann hums as she considers. “Why’d you become a doctor if you wanted to be a scientist?”

“My parents wanted me to be a doctor,” she says, turning back to the stitches so she can escape Holtzmann’s judgment. 

“Huh,” Holtzmann says, going quiet for a moment. “What else do your parents want you to do?”

Erin raises her eyebrows at the personal question, but Holtzmann doesn’t back down. “Get married, have a family, the usual, I suppose,” she says, sighing.

She’d already done so many of the things her parents wanted her to do; stopped talking about ghosts, gone to medical school, stopped becoming romantically involved with other women because ‘Really, Erin, how do you expect to find a good husband like that? It’s sending out mixed messages.’ Deep down, she knew her parents only really wanted what was best for her, but just didn’t realise that what was best for her was entirely different to what was best for them. Sometimes she wondered whether they’d ever stop setting life objectives for her.

“You’re not married?” Holtzmann asks, with an expression Erin can’t define.

“No, I’m not,” Erin says, a little sharper than she intended, but she’s sick of being judged, her mother is enough. “Are you married?”

Holtzmann snorts, clearly finding this hilarious. “Nope,” she says simply, and thankfully lets the subject go.

Nearing the end of the stitch, Erin asks, “Do you have a friend waiting who can drive you home? I’m assuming that’s how you got here.”

Holtzmann shakes her head. “I took the subway. Quicker.”

“You took the Subway?! Like that?” Erin can’t stop her voice rising, but Holtzmann just grins, sooty face lighting up the room.

“I gave the MTA lady a bit of a shock, but it’s okay, she knows me.”

“And the other passengers?”

Holtzmann shrugs. “Nah, I was like the third scariest thing on that train.”

Erin laughs, because, yeah, that’s probably right. She ties off the stitch and removes her gloves, leaning back to check her work. When she looks up Holtzmann is staring at her.

“Can I go now?” She implores, blue eyes wide.

“You still need to get a tetanus shot after I pulled that piece of metal out of your arm, so no.”

Holtzmann groans and slumps back on the bed, clearly annoyed that her puppy-dog eyes routine hadn’t been a success. “More needles,” she grumbles.

As if to extend her torture, at that moment the nurse returns with a needle in hand, ready to give the required shot. “Are you ready for your vaccination, Miss Holtzmann?”

Holtzmann scowls and reluctantly extends her left arm, Erin's amused at how much of a petulant child she looks.

Moments before the nurse gives the injection, Holtzmann turns to her with a glint in her eye and says, “Doctor Gilbert, will you hold my hand?”

Erin’s not one to turn down a patient’s request.

She takes Holtzmann’s hand, careful not to press on any minor cuts or burns, and makes the awful mistake of making eye contact. The injection lasts no longer than five seconds, but in that time Holtzmann shoots her a playful wink, squeezes her hand and smirks. Erin feels her cheeks burn, but doesn’t look away.

She just about notices the nurse leaving the room, calls out a vague ‘Thanks Amanda’ and clears her throat, picking up the clipboard from the side of the bed.

“If you could just sign this medical form.”

Holtzmann grins and takes it from her, delving in her bag for a pair of yellow glasses. She puts them on and writes on the form, tongue poking out slightly as she concentrates. Erin watches another piece of scorched hair float to the floor.

“Can I go now?” Holtzmann asks, returning the clipboard.

“Of course,” Erin says, and if she’s being completely honest, and selfish, she wanted the woman to stay longer, just so they could talk about her job as a nuclear engineer. Holtzmann starts packing her Pringles back into her bag. Erin looks at the completely illegible scribble of a signature on the form and notices the phone number and smiley face written underneath. “Oh,” she starts, before she can stop. “You didn’t need to write your phone number on here, it’s already on your medical records.”

Holtzmann looks at her intently, waits.

“Oh. Oh, I see.” Erin feels her face heat up. “That’s very… flattering.”

When she fails to say anything else, Holtzmann picks up her back pack and salutes Erin, then says in a very sincere tone, “Thanks for your help, Doctor Gilbert. See you around.”

For her own sanity and professionalism, Erin almost hopes she doesn’t.

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter, please leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts!
I haven't written anything for two years and have never written fanfic for a movie before, so please let me know what you think so far.
I have maybe six or seven chapters planned out for this story and am halfway through writing the fourth, so hopefully it won't take too long to get the whole thing published.
Again, please leave a comment if you get chance! I am always anxious to write for a new fandom. Thank you :)

Chapter 2

Notes:

This is a little shorter than first intended, but I wanted to split this section and the next.
Thank you all for all your lovely comments so far, it's very encouraging :)

A week later, Holtzmann turns up again.

It was as though she had somehow manifested herself from Erin’s thoughts, because honestly, Erin had been thinking about her a lot. On a surface level, just for the woman’s complete, unabashed weirdness with her blowtorches, burnt hair and goddamn Pringles. But also because Holtzmann was the most interesting person she’d met in who knows how long. She was a nuclear engineer. A scientist. She seemed to blow herself up on a regular basis. She was living Erin’s dream job –minus the blowing up- and Erin desperately wanted to know more about her, ask her what she was working on, what it was like to be a real scientist.

So when she enters the room and sees Holtzmann sitting on the hospital bed, she jumps about two inches in the air and half-yells, “Holtzmann!”

 

Up until that point it had been a fairly average week. The usual, achingly long night-shift filled with heart attacks, car crash victims and the occasional broken leg or two. By the time Erin got back to her apartment, at 8:30am if she was lucky, she often found herself too tired to even make dinner, opting to go straight to bed. On Saturday night, with some persuasion from her mother down the phone, she’d gone on a date with one of the Senior Radiographers, Phil. He was nice enough; offering to pay, holding doors, complimenting her, but on the whole, pretty uninspiring. Slightly boring. Not the type of person Erin could have fun with, but the type that her parents would want her to marry; the Doctor, the Radiographer, a nice house and a family in the suburbs.

Sometimes, a small part of Erin thought maybe she should just stop being so picky, just give in and go for a guy like Phil and get married. But the other, louder part of her said ‘no frickin’ way’, because she’d already given up her dream career in Physics, she wasn’t about to give up the idea of her dream partner, not even at thirty eight years old. Erin wasn’t even sure what her ‘dream partner’ looked like, male or female, she just wanted someone interesting and different. Someone who liked science. Someone like Holtzmann. With a little less explosions.

 

Holtzmann tilts her head and grins, “Doctor Gilbert! You remembered me,” she says, clearly delighted.

“Uh, yes,” Erin says, trying to regain some composure. She takes in Holtzmann’s appearance. Her hair is in the same gravity-defying up-do it was in last time, but this time not burnt. Her arms are exposed due to her dark green crop top and paint-splattered overalls she’s wearing, and Erin is pleased to see that the variety of cuts and scrapes she was sporting last time appear to have healed over. Unfortunately, her right hand is currently bunched up inside a bloodied towel and held in the air to reduce the bleeding. “You’re hard to forget.”

Holtzmann raises her eyebrows. “Reeaally?” She drawls.

“Not because- with your- because you-” Erin stammers, gesturing to Holtzmann’s general appearance. She sighs. “Never mind.”

Holtzmann’s grin only widens, like that was the exact reaction she wanted. “Sure.”

Erin clears her throat and takes a seat. “What did you do to your hand?”

“I was heating some acid, forgot about it, remembered, went to grab the flask to get it off the flame, flask exploded near my hand.” She mimics the explosion with her uninjured left hand, complete with sound effects. “It’s super painful, I won’t lie.”

Again finding herself stunned by her patient’s lack of safety awareness, Erin moves to carefully unwrap the towel from around Holtzmann’s hand. It’s not pretty. There are small shards of glass embedded all over her hand, but all her fingers are still there at least.

“What acid were you heating?” Erin asks vaguely, pulling on a new pair of disposable gloves and retrieving a pair of tweezers.

“Hydrochloric.”

Erin bites her lip hard to stop herself raising her voice and fixes Holtzmann with a glare. She has the decency to look a little ashamed. “You were directly heating hydrochloric acid? And you forgot about it?”

“Maybe,” Holtzmann mumbles guiltily.

“Holtzmann!” She exclaims, unable to stop her voice rising in pitch. “Heating hydrochloric acid produces hydrogen chloride gas! That could kill you! What the hell does your lab colleague think?”

“She goes home in the evening and I do lots of my work at night when she’s not there. Or anyone else is there. That way if something goes wrong, we don’t have to evacuate the whole school like we used to,” Holtzmann taps the side of her head as if to say, ‘smart, right?’ “Anyway, it’s like 1am, she’s not gonna find out. I’ll just have to open the windows tomorrow morning.”

Erin rolls her eyes, steadily removing glass shards with the tweezers. All of the pieces come out rather easily, none too deeply embedded, and thankfully missing major arteries and tendons.

“Well, it looks like you’ve been lucky so far. Keep your hand raised and straighten your fingers out,” she instructs, watching closely as Holtzmann does exactly that. “And… bend them.” Holtzmann raises a suggestive eyebrow. “Into a fist,” Erin clarifies, which only makes Holtzmann smirk more, but she eventually complies.

There doesn’t seem to be any damage to the main structures in Holtzmann’s hand, but Erin’s still annoyed. Annoyed that someone, particularly someone as clever as a nuclear engineer, could be so stupid as to heat hydrochloric acid and then try to pick up the container. Sighing, she takes out an alcohol wipe and carefully begins to clean her hand, noticing Holtzmann’s hands and arms already had tiny scratches and scars, new and old, scattered all over them. 

“You should be more careful.” Holtzmann shrugs, nonchalant. “Seriously,” Erin says in the sternest voice she can muster, but she doubts it will have any effect.

Holtzmann winces, swearing under her breath as Erin passes over a particularly nasty cut.

“How’s the pain?”

Holtzmann’s expression quickly morphs. “Much better now there’s a pretty doctor holding my hand.” She winks. “Too much?”

“No, no it’s nice,” Erin smiles and Holtzmann matches it. Honestly, it was nice for someone to be this interested in her, despite Holtzmann’s cheesy flirting techniques.

Erin stitches all the cuts on her hand, which feels like a medical marathon, laughing as Holtzmann quick-fires terrible pick-up lines at her, ranging from scientific (‘Did you just donate me an electron because you’re reducing me to a puddle of goo right now'), to innocent to downright dirty. Was it inappropriate to allow a patient to flirt with her so openly? Probably. Right now, Holtzmann was making her feel better than she'd felt in years, rules be damned.

With her hand thoroughly bandaged, (‘How on earth am I supposed to work like this?! I'm an engineer!), Holtzmann spends a considerable amount of time writing her phone number out on the medical form with her left hand, again pulling out the same pair of yellow glasses before writing, tongue poking out slightly in concentration. Erin thinks she looks adorable, like a yellow lab puppy. Lab puppy. Erin accidentally chuckles out loud at her unintended pun.

Holtzmann shoots her a quizzical glance at the sound.

“Why do you wear those glasses?” Erin blurts out, unable to contain her curiosity.

“So I can see,” Holtzmann says with a wry smile.

“No, I mean- I know that. But why are the lenses yellow? If you don’t mind me asking,” Erin tacks on, but it’s a little late.

“It’s okay,” Holtzmann says, not looking up from the clipboard. “I’m mildly dyslexic so they help me write properly, reduces the distortion. Stops me getting headaches, too." 

“Oh. Well, I’m glad - that the glasses help, not that you’re dyslexic. Obviously,” she laughs awkwardly, and is relieved when Holtzmann smiles back.

"I used to wear coloured contacts, but I kept forgetting to take them out which got a bit messy. So now I just stick with the glasses," Holtzmann continues, clearly not bothered by talking about the subject. She hands back the clipboard and stands, combat boots heavy on the floor. The smiley face by her phone number returns, this time with shakily drawn hearts instead of eyes. “Thanks for your help, Doctor Gilbert.”

“It’s no problem.” She hesitates. “And… you can call me Erin – if you want.”

If she thought Holtzmann’s smile couldn’t get any wider, she was wrong. “Niiice. First name basis with a hot doctor,” Holtzmann declares triumphantly, fist pumping with her right hand and immediately grimacing. “Ouch-y. See you around, Doctor Erin Gilbert,” Holtzmann beams, waving briefly as she disappears through the sheeting.

Erin doesn’t call her in the end.

She contemplates it on her 2:30am lunch break, thumb hovering over the call button of her mobile phone, but eventually decides not to. She may not love her medical career but, as much as she wants to pursue her strange scientist patient, she can’t really afford to throw it down the drain. She can't even begin to imagine what her parents would say if she got fired for dating a patient, especially a female one. She hopes Holtzmann understands. Besides, it’s highly unlikely that, despite Holtzmann’s dangerous behaviour, she’ll even see her again anyway.

 

Notes:

Patty and Abby are in later chapters, I promise.
Please comment and let me know what you think! Next chapter up soon :)

Chapter 3

Notes:

The next installment!
Thanks so much for all your comments so far, they mean a lot to me :)

Five days.

Not even a full week.

Holtzmann walks, or rather limps, into the emergency department again, five days later. Erin’s not even surprised to see her again at this point - shocked, maybe, but not surprised. Even some of the nurses were starting to recognise her at this point. Walking into the room she curses under her breath when she sees Holtzmann lying back on the bed.

“Doctor Gilbert!” She practically shouts, looking incredibly pleased. “I’m back!”

“It’s Erin,” Erin corrects gently, trying to lower the volume in the room. “And yes, I can see that.”

She assesses Holtzmann’s condition. Her left trouser leg is rolled up to reveal a large gash running down the length of her shin and there’s dark bruising on her shoulders and upper arms, exposed by a white tank top. Her combat boots are discarded carelessly on the floor. There’s a pair of yellow lab goggles resting on top of her head in place of her yellow glasses. Her previously butchered right hand is now uncovered and appears at least half-healed.

Erin takes the seat next to the bed. “What happened, Holtzmann?”

“You know, if I’m calling you Erin, then technically you should be calling me Holtz,” the blonde says thoughtfully.

“Right,” Erin nods, somewhat taken aback by the sudden change in topic of conversation. “What happened, Holtz?”

“Dumpster diving took a bad turn,” she says, offering no further explanation.

“Dumpster diving?” Erin frowns. Just when she thought the woman couldn’t get any stranger. At least she didn’t appear to have blown herself up this time. It was a little odd to see her without her face covered in a layer of soot, her blonde hair looking lighter without the scorch marks. For Erin, it was like she was truly seeing her for the first time, since last time she had been so focused on her injured hand. She had to admit that Holtzmann was attractive in an eccentric kind of way, blue eyes sparkling with mischief and a dimpled smile.

“Looking for parts, scrap metal, anything that I can work with. You’d be surprised what people throw away. One time I found eight microwaves – in one dumpster!” She exclaims, waving her arms in the air and Erin finds her enthusiasm infectious. “Anyway, so I was reaching in the dumpster to get this bit of pipe and I kinda fell in. Something snagged my leg and ripped it open a bit,” she points to the open wound. “And yeah. I fell in. It hurt.” She points to her bruised shoulders.

Erin can’t think of anything to say, apart from, “That’s really dangerous, Holtz.”

“Eh,” Holtz shrugs and says proudly, “all in the name of science. Good thing I was wearing my safety goggles though, could’ve got something jabbed in my eye.” She gestures to the yellow goggles on her head and says in a serious tone, “Totally not for dudes. Safety lights, however…”

Erin pauses to see if there will be more elaboration on her patient’s latest misadventure. There isn’t. “I’m just going to go straight ahead and get this gash cleaned and stitched up,” she explains, preparing all of her equipment.

Holtzmann groans dramatically. “Do you really need to stitch it? Can’t you just… put a bandage on it?”

“Yes and no, to answer your questions,” Erin says decisively, cleaning the gash with a wipe and then wet gauze, before drying it with a clean paper tissue.

“You’re a hard woman,” Holtzmann says, sighing heavily like her request was totally reasonable. Erin shoots her a look of sympathy and then prepares the stitch, pulling on a pair of disposable gloves.

“Doctor Gilbert?” Erin looks up and Holtzmann points to her leg. “I scraped my knee falling for you.”

Erin rolls her eyes and sighs, hoping her faux annoyance will mask her blush. “Very clever,” she concedes.

“You don’t like that one? I got plenty more.” She takes Erin’s free hand and gazes into her eyes. Erin feels her heart rate pick up and wishes that it hadn’t. “I’m no organ donor,” Holtzmann pauses for dramatic effect, “but I’d be happy to give you my heart.”

Erin raises her eyebrows as Holtzmann laughs and lets go of her hand, trying to downplay the brave flirtation. It’s not like she’s never been the subject of such pick-up lines before, especially from Holtzmann, but it’s still somewhat strange to see such an open and bold display of flirting from a woman who doesn’t even know she’s not straight.

“Very original,” she says sarcastically and turns back to the stitch. “Did you go home and google medical pick-up lines when you got home last time?”

“Maybe,” Holtzmann says with an air of mystery, dimples showing as she smiles. They fall into a quiet, listening to the general hustle and bustle of the hospital before Erin remembers all the questions she wanted to ask Holtzmann about her work, but forgot last time.

“So, you’re a Nuclear Engineer,” Erin starts. “What kind of things do you do?”

She looks up just in time to see a wave of delight pass over Holtzmann’s face. “Mostly? Blow things up. But I’m currently working on a hollow laser for a reverse tractor beam.”

Erin stops her work, hands hovering over Holtzmann’s leg. “You can move particles from one polarisation to another?” She asks quietly, eyes widening.

“Stopping the particle or reversing its direction. That’s the plan, anyway,” Holtzmann fills in, grinning excitedly. She tilts her head and looks at Erin, as though studying her. “You’re interested in experimental physics?”

“Yes,” Erin says, without hesitation. “If I hadn’t gone through Medical School, I would’ve become a Physicist.”

“Specialising in?”

“Particle physics.”

Holtzmann’s face lights up like a Christmas tree, despite the needle in her leg. “Nice! Got any physics jokes I can steal?”

Erin smiles in surprise because it’s been a while since she’s cracked a science joke. She‘d tried some on the other students during the early days of Med School, but it had always fallen flat so she'd given up pretty quickly. “Who’s always on the case when the electricity goes out? And you can only steal it if you get the answer right.”

Holtzmann readjusts the yellow goggles on top of her head, pushing them further back into her mess of blonde hair, as she thinks of an answer. Erin takes the opportunity to fully take in the other woman’s appearance, sneaking glances between stitches. Holtzmann really was gorgeous – questionable fashion choices, particularly the mismatched socks and green trousers, but still able to pull it off. There’s a chain around her neck that Erin doesn’t remember from last time, probably because of the large overalls Holtzmann had been wearing. Attached to the chain is a pendant with a metal ‘U’ and a screw through the middle. 'Screw you'. The light metal of it contrasts against Holtzmann’s pale skin and the dark bruising on her shoulders. Erin reminds herself to check them properly later.

“Always on the case…” Holtzmann muses, brow creasing in concentration. “Like a detective, right?”

Erin raises her eyebrows as a response, but says nothing. Holtzmann accepts this as a clue. “So, a detective… Sherlock Holmes?” She gasps suddenly, smacking her hand on the bed which makes Erin jump. “Sherlock Ohms!”

She looks so pleased with herself that Erin just laughs. “Yes! Yes, Sherlock Ohms.”

Holtzmann laughs too. "You're really pretty," she blurts out suddenly.

"Thank you," Erin says, after missing a long beat. "So are you."

For a moment, Erin feels their eyes just lock, feels something shift in the air between them. Holtzmann goes silent, waits for Erin to turn away and then looks at her so intently that Erin thinks she can feel her gaze piercing her skin. She hears Holtzmann take a deep breath, fidgeting uncomfortably in her peripheral vision and then she starts stuttering, unlike anything Erin’s heard her say before.

“You know… if you’re free – or interested… I could- maybe I could give you a tour around the Lab at KPH sometime – the Kenneth P Higgins Institute that is… where I work – I don’t know… I thought maybe you would – like that… because, you know… science,” Holtzmann trails off painfully, exhaling sharply and looking away when Erin tries to make eye-contact.

Her cheeks are flushed pink from what Erin assumes is embarrassment. Honestly, she’s surprised. She didn’t even think, from their two brief meetings, that Holtzmann could even be embarrassed. Her whole aura of confidence and charisma appears to have crumbled in just a few short, but agonizing seconds.

There’s a rustle of sheeting behind her and she turns to see Phil entering the room, holding a clipboard. Erin tries hard not to let her face fall, but it’s difficult. “Doctor Gilbert,” Phil acknowledges, giving her his brightest smile, in what seems to be an attempt at charm. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“Phil,” she greets with forced cheerfulness, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “I’m with a patient, what’s the problem?” Erin gestures to said patient and sees that Holtzmann doesn’t look particularly pleased at the radiographer’s presence.

“I’ve got the x-ray results back for the woman involved in the car accident who was admitted around one o’clock this morning. When you’re done here I thought you could take them up for discussion with the surgeons.”

“Thanks,” Erin grinds out, irritated at him; one, for interrupting her with a patient unnecessarily, and two, for interrupting Holtzmann’s painful attempt at asking her out. She takes the clipboard gingerly with her free hand.

Phil seems reluctant to leave. He spots Holtzmann’s half-stitched gash and frowns. “Ouch. What happened?”

“Shark attack,” Holtzmann deadpans, the pink tinge now gone from her cheeks.

Phil laughs awkwardly and shoots Erin a look.

It’s a look Erin knows well and it makes her blood boil. It’s the exact same look her mother gave the therapist at the very first appointment she forced Erin to go to. When Erin had described the ghost at the end of her bed that plagued her night after night, literally haunting her every single day. And her Mother had given the look that Phil just had, the “She’s crazy, right? Help me.”

“Anything else?” Erin asks in a clipped tone, patience wearing thinner than the metaphorical ice Phil was currently standing on.

“Uh, no.” He looks a little flustered. “We’re still on for Saturday, right?”

Erin blinks. “Saturday?”

Phil looks at her expectantly. “Our second date?”

The question hangs in the air.

Erin stares at Phil, eyes slowly narrowing, stunned by his complete audacity to bring that up in front of a patient, and also by the fact that she’d even agreed to a second date in the first place – clearly she’d drunk more wine at the restaurant than she’d remembered. Holtzmann clears her throat loudly, cracking the silence wide open. 

“Doctor Gilbert, my shark savaged leg is still kinda hurting.” Her voice is toneless.

“Right,” Erin says pointedly. She turns back to the stitch, not even looking at Phil when she addresses him. “If that’s everything, I think you’re ready to leave.”

“Of course. See you later, Erin.” He escapes sheepishly and pulls the blue sheeting back across to give her and Holtzmann privacy.

“We’ll see,” Erin mutters under her breath. She can't even meet Holtzmann’s eyes after that sordid display. “I’m so sorry.”

Holtzmann shrugs. “It’s okay,” she says, but it's clearly not.

She doesn’t speak for the remainder of her treatment, just wincing occasionally at the needle. Her medical pick-up lines cease and her previous offer for the lab tour seems pretty much off the table. Erin feels terrible. Holtzmann is obviously upset by the recent turn of events but it doesn’t look like she wants to talk about it.

She finishes the long stitch up the gash on Holtzmann’s leg, bandaging it lightly for protection. Holtzmann hastily rolls her trouser leg back down and starts to move off the bed before Erin can do anything, shoving her boots back on. Erin raises a hand to try and stop her, but it's too late.

“Holtzmann wait, I need to check your shoulders.”

Picking up her backpack from beside the bed, Holtzmann just shakes her head and mumbles “It’s fine,” rushing through the sheeting with a slight limp, eyes not moving from the floor.

“Make sure to keep your leg elevated!” Erin calls after her, but the message doesn’t seem to carry.

Erin deflates into her chair, feels cold weight sink onto her shoulders. She doesn’t think she’ll see Holtzmann again.

Notes:

booooo, phil sucks :(
anyways, next chap is Holtzmann focused and Abby and Patty are there so it's all good!
please let me know what you think in the comments :))

Chapter 4

Notes:

Holtzmann, Abby and Patty :)
Again, thanks for all your comments so far! x

Flirting was the easy part. The pick-up lines, playful winks and smiles. She could learn them, practice them, and use them on pretty much every woman without a wedding ring. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. The beauty of being rejected by a woman she’d only known for five minutes was that it didn’t hurt – no feelings to crush and no risks.

Rejections varied from polite brush-offs to looks of repulsion to hostile interventions from boyfriends. Some women even agreed that yes, they would go on a date with her. And then it would all start to go downhill. She’d develop feelings fast, be unable to talk about those feelings without becoming a stammering wreck and the one, two or three night fling would end.

The longest relationship she’d ever had was 3 months and 17 days, (of course she counted) back in the second year of college with a red-headed art major, who seemed to love her wild personality. That quickly changed when the girl realised that Holtzmann’s strange behaviours weren’t just for show, to be quirky or attractive, and said that Holtzmann wasn’t what she was looking for in the long-term. Holtzmann decided there and then that if she couldn’t have anything long-term, then she’d sure as hell get better at having the short-term, and so the flirting tactics began.

When she’d first started working with Abby, she’d flirted with her, too. Abby had let her down quickly, but gently. Said she didn’t like her, or anyone really, like that. In the end, Holtzmann was glad nothing romantic had passed between them; Abby was far too valuable a friend to lose. The brunette had practically gifted her the interview for the position at KPH – after the incident at CERN, Holtzmann didn’t think she’d ever work in her field ever again, even with Dr Gorin’s influence. Thanks to Abby, she had a job, which meant she could get an apartment and, most importantly, a real friend. They worked well together, or Holtzmann thought so anyway, seeing as she’d never really worked with someone else before. It was nice to have someone to talk to throughout the day, bounce ideas off of, even if Abby answered with a firm ‘Holtzmann, no!’ most of the time. Now that Abby was in her life, Holtzmann wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope without her, the brunette doubling up as a friend and older sister.

Holtzmann’s sat at her desk with a large heap of electrical wiring she found in a cupboard from another lab, stripping it with her favourite pair of linesman’s pliers. Her left leg is propped up on a stool because it won’t stop throbbing. It hurts so much she can feel her blood pulsing against the stitches, skin hot underneath the bandage but she doesn’t have any painkillers, so she’ll just have to wait for the Abby, the human first aid kit, to come in.

After last night’s fiasco at the hospital, involving one particularly gorgeous Dr Erin Gilbert and the crushing of Holtzmann’s own heart, she’d limped home and attempted to shower with a plastic bag wrapped around her bandaged leg. Needless to say it hadn’t been a success. Then, after devouring the last of the Pringles in her apartment, she’d gotten a restless three hours sleep due to the pain in her leg. In the morning, she’d shuffled in on the tube station, waving meekly to Patty as she passed by, promising to stop in for a chat later. And now she was here, stripping electrical wiring and reflecting on the pain that was falling for straight women.

The sound of the door opening pulls Holtzmann out of her thoughts, as Abby bursts in, mid-way through yelling at a student who appears to be crashing around in the hallway. In her usual jeans and cardigan combo, Abby stops short when she sees Holtzmann at her desk, not used to seeing her colleague so early in the morning.

“Holtzmann! Nice to see you this side of lunch,” she teases good-naturedly. “You got a lot of wires going on there, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” Holtzmann says, not really in the mood for talking.

Abby moves further into the room, transferring various items onto different tables or throwing litter into the bin. “Why’s your leg up like that?”

Holtzmann pauses. “I’ve taken up yoga. It’s called the… desk position.”

“Oh yeah? Let me see that,” Abby demands, rushing over and pulling up Holtzmann’s trouser leg. Holtzmann doesn’t give in easily, trying to force Abby’s hands away, but the brunette is stronger. “What the hell, Holtzmann!” She exclaims, exposing the large bandage on her leg.

Groaning in frustration, Holtzmann sets down her pliers. “I cut my leg open dumpster diving last night.”

“And?”

“I got it checked out at the hospital, I’m fine.”

“Ooh, the hospital,” Abby says, raising her eyebrows suggestively.  “Did you see your hot doctor friend again?”

Holtzmann groans even louder, slouching in her chair.

Abby pulls a face. “Not good, then.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Abby accepts, a little reluctantly and pats Holtzmann on the knee. “If you need anything just shout.” Then she disappears into her designated ‘safe’ area of the lab, separated by an orange sheet.

Holtzmann’s grateful. One of the many good things of having Abby as a colleague is that she knows when Holtzmann wants to be left alone and doesn’t get offended. The separation lasts for a few hours, with Abby working quietly next door and Holtzmann continuing to strip the wires. She likes the repetition of the action, it calms her down.

Around lunchtime, Abby pops her head around the sheeting and says she’s ordering in more of her infamous soup, asks if Holtzmann wants anything. Holtzmann says no without looking up. Abby disappears again for another ten minutes before she tiptoes out, obviously holding something behind her back.

Abby starts into some kind of dance that resembles a strip tease, humming a song and shimmying around the lab, all the while keeping the item behind her back. She steals one of the wires from Holtzmann’s desk and twirls it around her head, slapping it on the desk like a whip occasionally. She keeps up the routine for little over a minute, both her and Holtzmann reduced to fits of giggles before she reveals a tube of Pringles from behind her back with a “Taa-daa!”

Holtzmann knows there’s absolutely no way she’ll be able to turn them down. She’s starving and her own supply has already run dry. Abby pulls up a chair to Holtzmann’s desk, sits opposite her and places the tube of crisps on her own side of the table.

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll let you have them.”

Holtzmann pouts. “This is pure bribery, Abby. I didn’t know you could stoop to such filthy lows as to withhold my beloved Pringles from me.”

Abby raises her eyebrows in challenge, pops the lid off the tube and pulls back the foil, then starts waving the Pringles in front of Holtzmann’s nose. Holtzmann feels herself start salivating at the smell of the crisps being wafted in front of her.

“Come on, Holtzy. Tell me what happened at the hospital.”

Sighing, Holtzmann nods and puts down her pliers, preparing herself for the story. Abby moves the Pringles to the middle of the desk.

“I cut my leg open. I went to the hospital. I saw my ‘hot doctor friend’, who shall remain unnamed for confidentiality purposes. She was… looking lovely as always in her lab coat and jeans, I used the wonderful pick-up lines we googled and she asked me about my work. She actually seemed interested in it and said she liked Physics.”

Abby nods her encouragement, pushes the Pringles closer.

“I… asked her out. Tried to,” she sighs and leans forward onto the desk, resting her chin on her palm. “It was so awful, Abby. It sounded like I was a robot and someone had taken my batteries out.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Abby tries to reassure her, but she’s never seen Holtzmann stutter like that. She gives Holtzmann’s hand a squeeze. “What’d she say?”

Holtzmann shrugs, because she really doesn’t want to tell the next part. Abby doesn’t let her off the hook, goes to move to Pringles away again so Holtzmann will talk. She sighs, because of all her woeful tales of asking women out, this has to be the worst and saying it aloud makes is more real, inescapable.

“Before she could say anything, this guy came in, like one of those x-ray people or whatever, and was all ‘Hi, hot doctor, you still up for our second date?’”

“He said that? In front of you?” Abby pulls a face of disgust. “Well, that’s very unprofessional. Was he even attractive?”

“Nope. Total below average white guy. He’s not even a doctor, I’m a doctor!” Holtzmann exclaims, grabbing a handful of Pringles and munching them angrily. “I felt so stupid, I left as quick as I could.”

Abby frowns. “Hey, you’re not stupid. Listen, there’s plenty more girls out there for you, you’ve just got to find the right one.”

“I guess,” Holtzmann concedes. “But I won't find another one like that. She’s smart, she’s beautiful, she knows physics jokes. I just… I really thought there was something there, that she liked me back. I don’t know, maybe I imagined it.”

Maybe she had imagined it. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d mistaken friendship for romantic interest. But she really did think Erin was interested – she’d asked Holtzmann about her work, laughed, not unkindly, at her pick-up lines, smiled, said it was nice when Holtzmann flirted with her. And yet she was going on a second date with average x-ray man, what was his name, Bill? Phil? Who cared, Erin was so out of his league it was almost painful. Not that Holtzmann thought she was anywhere near Erin’s ‘league’, but that didn’t matter anyway. Because Erin was straight. Or possibly bi, Holtzmann muses. But that was unlikely. She couldn’t even be friends with her after what happened last night, couldn’t pretend that she only liked her platonically. Holtzmann had well and truly blown it, and now the only logical solution was to never see Erin again. She’d have to start going to a different hospital, just in case.

“You really liked her, huh?” Abby says, a little surprised, because she’s seen Holtzmann get hung up over girls she meets on the tube, or the local coffee shop they go to, but never like this.

Holtzmann nods slowly, hugs the Pringles tube to her chest for comfort. “Yeah. I thought… it sounds stupid, but I thought she was ‘the one’.”

Until now, she'd never really believed in the ridiculous notion of 'love at first sight'. Now Holtzmann was praying that it actually was true, because that was surely the only way to get someone to fall in love with her. Once they got past the 'first sight' phase, they'd certainly be put off.

Abby opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by the long-suffering deliveryman, Benny, who knocks loudly despite being halfway through the door already. Abby collects her take-out, Benny escaping quickly before Abby can complain about the awful quality of her soup.

“Sure I can’t get you anything? Last chance,” Abby offers, shaking her tub of soup.

“I’m good,” Holtzmann declines, relieved their one-sided conversation about ‘feelings’ is over. “I’m about to head out anyway, I’m meeting up with Patty.”

Abby nods, seeming pleased that Holtzmann has another friend she can talk to. “See you later, then. Go steady with your leg.”

Holtzmann salutes, feeling happier now, and limps out of the door, excited to see Patty. If Holtzmann had to describe Patty to someone who’d never met her, she’d say ‘big friendly giant made of sunshine.’ It was hardly an exaggeration; Patty was incredibly tall, at least six foot, so to Holtzmann she was technically a giant. And she was friendly. Holtzmann told her as much.

They’d only been friends for a short while, Patty beginning to recognise Holtzmann who kept riding the subway home after blowing herself up, and yelling at her to be more careful. Once, in her haste to make the next train, Holtzmann had run a little too fast, taking a tumble down the steps, and almost knocked herself unconscious. This prompted Patty to finally intervene, shining a flashlight in Holtzmann’s eyes and tapping her face lightly to keep her awake. Holtzmann, in her drowsy state, asked if she’d died and gone to heaven, because Patty was an angel. Patty had said she was about to turn into a devil if Holtzmann didn’t take her subway, and general, safety more seriously, and the friendship had begun.

She walks the short journey to the station, moving clumsily through the lunch hour rush until she sees Patty waiting for her. She yells “Patty!” as loud as she can and waves, hoping the taller woman will see her over the crowd. She does, eventually.

“Holtzy!” Patty shouts back, pushing easily past other people with a huge grin on her face. She scoops Holtzmann into a crushing hug that actually lifts her off the ground, but Holtzmann allows herself to melt into it, enjoying the brute force of Patty’s friendship. She smiles into Patty’s shoulder and thinks, yep, definitely made of sunshine. Patty frowns when Holtzmann winces and rubs her leg as she places her back on the ground. “I thought I saw you limping this morning! What in God’s name have you done now?”

Holtzmann throws her head back dramatically and groans loudly, earning a few startled glances from other pedestrians, at the mere thought of telling that story again. She links her and Patty’s arms together and starts them off down the street. “Let’s just walk and talk, Patty.”

“Alright, but I’m just saying you need to stop getting hurt. I’m not gonna be happy if I wake up one morning, look on the front page of the newspaper and see that my favourite nuclear engineer blew up the college or whatever. That a new waistcoat, by the way?”

“It is, well spotted. I’m not gonna blow up the college, maybe just the entire state.” Patty shoots her a death glare. “Okay, fine, I’ll be careful. Anyway, about my leg,” Holtzmann starts and tells her what happened. She leaves out the entire embarrassing segment about Erin, says she saw a different doctor instead, because it’s painful to say and because she wants her time with Patty to be fun.

They sit in the park and eat their respective lunches, Holtzmann with her Pringles and Patty with some weird meat-cheese sandwich she made at home. Holtzmann offers Patty some Pringles, even though it’s her last pack, but is secretly pleased when the other woman turns them down. They chat about their usual topics; Patty’s weird encounters with customers on the subway, Holtzmann’s latest invention ideas, a book Patty read recently, the weather. As much as Holtzmann loves Abby, it’s nice to talk with someone outside of her work sometimes. Patty always puts her in a good mood, with her wonderful stories about New York and terrible jokes that made her laugh loudly, which in turn made Holtzmann laugh until they both forget what was funny in the first place.

Holtzmann goes back to the lab feeling refreshed, her leg still hurts, but she feels better. Abby is pleased to see her in a better mood when she gets back, says she's put a packet of paracetamol on Holtzmann's desk for the pain. Holtzmann vows to herself not to think about Erin for the rest of the day. Obviously she’s setting herself up to fail, because she can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop thinking about her smile, her ridiculous physics jokes, and bangs that were too long and sometimes got caught in her bright blue eyes. Holtzmann just wanted to lean forward, brush the dark hair out of her eyes and kiss her.

Of course she thinks about her. Holtzmann couldn’t stop if she tried.

Notes:

No Holtzbert in this chapter, but next chapterrrr ;)
Please comment your thoughts below!

Chapter 5

Notes:

Probs won't update for a little while after this as I am going away to Berlin for the week :)
So enjoy the Holtzbertttt ;)

She goes on a second date with Phil. Isn’t sure why, because she doesn’t really like him, but she’s lonely and he’s nice enough to go out with for an evening. He takes her to a restaurant, a fancier one than before, not that it matters to Erin; she’s never been one to be impressed by money.  

She makes an effort to get dressed up, wears a navy blue dress that covers her shoulders and ends just above the knee with a light jacket over the top, because it’s cool for a summer evening, and wears heels even though her feet will ache by the end of the night.

“How have you been?” Phil asks, once they’re seated at their table. It’s candlelit, with napkins styled as swans, which Erin thinks is slightly ridiculous.

“Good, and yourself?” Erin replies, looking through the overpriced menu.

“Wonderful. You look lovely tonight, by the way,” Phil smiles, gesturing to Erin’s appearance.

“Thank you,” Erin says, and she means it, but she doesn’t blush and her heart doesn’t skip a beat. Not like with Holtzmann. They order their starters, something with seafood that Erin can’t pronounce, and make embarrassingly boring small talk while they wait for it to arrive.

Quickly, Erin starts to realise just why she was so hesitant to go on a second date. Phil was friendly, complimentary about her and well-mannered, but so, so dull. He talks about a new CT scanner that’s about to be purchased for the radiography department at the hospital for a solid five minutes. Normally, Erin might be interested, because of the physics involved, but Phil makes it sound so incredibly boring that she wills the time to pass by quicker.

The food arrives, a little later than Phil seemed to be expecting, and the waiter almost knocks over the water jug on the table.

“God, I hate bad service,” Phil remarks once the waiter has disappeared again. “Right?”

“Mm,” Erin hums vaguely, frowning because she doesn’t care as long as the food tastes great. “Any interesting patients, recently?”

“I had a soccer player in the other week with one of the worst leg breaks I’ve seen in a long time,” Phil says with a grimace. “Other than that, just the usual. What about you?”

“Oh,” Erin starts, feels the hint of a smile creep onto her face as she thinks of one patient in particular. “I have a recurring patient who seems to come in every week.” The smile fades equally quickly when she remembers how their last encounter ended. Erin didn’t think Holtzmann would be coming in again after that.

“That Holtzmann woman, right? Blonde? Funny clothes?” Erin nods reluctantly at this complete reduction of Holtzmann’s entire personality. “Yeah, I know her. The shark attack woman,” he laughs and it isn’t kind. “She’s a weird one, huh?”

“She’s a nuclear engineer,” Erin counters, more than a little annoyed.

“Yeah, but she’s strange,” Phil says, as if that’s all there is to it.

“She’s working on a hollow laser beam.”

Phil shrugs. “Okay. I heard from one of the nurses that she does some research into ghosts.”

“What?” Erin blurts out, stunned by that revelation. Did that mean Holtzmann, a real life professional scientist, believed in ghosts? Had she seen one too?

Phil pulls a face, mistaking Erin’s comment for one of disdain. “I know, right? What a freak.”

Erin opens her mouth to speak, but for a moment she’s lost for words. Phil seems to take her silence as an agreement. Obviously he’s wrong.

“Holtzmann’s extremely clever – she’s a doctor - and kind and funny – not a freak - and you’re being rude about her,” Erin rambles off, suddenly defensive of her patient.

She’s ready to let the subject drop, to let it go and focus on the evening ahead. And then he says it. Changes the course of the entire night and says it.

“If you like her so much, why don’t you go on a date with her instead?”

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Intended to make Erin shut up about Holtzmann and get back to their date.

But for Erin, it makes everything click into place like cogs in a machine that Holtzmann has designed.

So she says, “Okay.”

The serious tone of her voice makes Phil look up from his food. “I’m sorry?”

“Maybe I will.”

To Erin, it made perfect sense. She liked Holtzmann, as more than a friend, and Holtzmann definitely seemed to like her, if the flirting was anything to go by. They both adored science, particularly physics, and there was a spark between them that Erin hadn’t experienced for a long time. Holtzmann, as ridiculous as it sounded, made her heart flutter. Why shouldn’t she date her? Sure Holtzmann was a patient, but right now Erin doesn't care.

“Will what?”

“Go on a date with Holtzmann. I’ll call and see if she’s free.”

She takes her phone out of her bag, completely aware that Phil is staring at her with his mouth slightly open, but she doesn’t look up. She brings up Holtzmann’s number that she saved to her phone after chickening out of calling her the first time.  She presses the green dial button and holds the phone up to her ear.

“You have a patient’s phone number?!” Phil splutters across the table. Erin hides a smile at the shock on his face. “That’s so unprofessional, Erin!”

“As unprofessional as asking me out in front of a patient?” Erin asks, too far past the point of politeness now. She hears the dial-up tone, and then ringing.

“That’s different! We’re colleagues, what you’re about to do is… unethical!” Phil tries to argue back, but it’s futile.

Erin shrugs, pulls a few notes out of her purse and places them on the table to pay for the starter she didn’t even eat. She picks up her jacket and bag, and stands, chair scraping loudly against the floor.

“Erin! Where are you going?” Phil demands, his voice low but panicked. “Are you being serious right now? You’re actually considering a date with this woman? Are you even straight?”

“To see Holtzmann, yes, yes and no, to answer your questions,” Erin clarifies, hears her phone ring out without Holtzmann picking up. “I’ll see you on Monday,” she says, and leaves the restaurant without looking back, but knowing that every single person is watching her go.

Outside, Erin gets the chance to look at her phone again and sees that she has a new text message. It’s from Holtzmann.

Who is this?

Her hands are shaking slightly when she types her reply. Doctor Erin Gilbert.

She waits with baited breath, because Holtzmann might not reply and she couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. Five whole minutes pass before Erin gives up and starts walking away from the restaurant, and then she feels her phone vibrate. Incoming call – Jillian Holtzmann. She swipes to receive the call faster than she’s ever done in her life and stops dead in the street, almost causing a collision with the people walking behind her. There’s silence on the other end, so Erin speaks first.

“Hello, Holtzmann? It’s Erin.”

“I know.”

She sounds different on the phone, quieter. Completely unlike when Erin first heard her talking on the phone to her friend at the hospital.

“Where are you?”

“I’m… at work.”

On a Saturday evening? Erin thinks, but doesn’t ask. “I just… I was wondering if your offer for a tour of the lab was still available.”

There’s a long pause.

“It is.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Is it available right now?”

Another pause.

“Yes. You can… come over now. If you like.”

“Yes, yes, I would like that. Love that, even,” Erin says, a little breathless in her excitement. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

“See you… soon,” Holtzmann says simply, and hangs up.

Smiling at the thought of seeing Holtzmann again, she searches for directions to the Kenneth P Higgins Institute on her phone. It’s within walking distance, less than a mile. The thought of walking there in heels is painful, but Erin hopes it will be worth it. For the first time in what feels like years, she’s going on a date with someone she truly likes, shares interests with and who seems to like her back. Erin takes a deep breath, steadies herself and sets off down the street in the direction of the infamous science institution.

---

She’s freaking out. Hard. The lab looks like a bomb’s hit it, she’s wearing the same shirt she wore yesterday and Doctor Erin Gilbert is coming to see her.

If Holtzmann had had more notice, say two or three hours, she could’ve stolen some of the more impressive equipment from the actual physics labs, made sure there was no radioactive material lying around and gone home to change. But she didn’t have three hours. She had ‘soon’. How long was ‘soon’? Half an hour? An hour? Five minutes? Holtzmann had no idea. All she can think about is the fact that Erin wants to see her, even after Holtzmann’s stuttering and stammering and running out of the hospital in embarrassment. The one thing she can interpret from this recent turn of events is this: Erin must like her. Because even after all of the stupid things she’s seen Holtzmann do, she wants to see her again, wants to talk to her. She can’t believe it. Nervousness and excitement are bubbling so close to the surface Holtzmann feels a little nauseous.  

She practically flies around the lab, throwing random junk piled up from her unproductive day in the bin, clears all her acid bottles off the table and stuffs them in the nearest cupboard. Once all of the major health risks have been packed away, she sets to work on generally tidying the lab area, shoving her mass of copper wiring from the other day into some tarpaulin, bundling it up and dumping it into a corner. Various screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers are strewn around the room so she collects them up and puts them back in her ‘toolbox’ (a cardboard box with ‘Keep Out’ written on the front).

Holtzmann checks her watch. It’s been twenty minutes since Erin called her. She could be here any second. Holtzmann feels an extra surge of adrenaline shoot through her body and decides to focus on her own appearance for whatever time she has left.

She tidies her hair as best she can because she doesn’t have time to redo it, then runs to the student bathroom and washes her face with cold water. She makes the mistake of looking in the mirror. God, she looks terrible. There are dark rings under her eyes from the continuous sleepless nights due to her injured leg. For the first time ever, Holtzmann realises that she cares about what someone else thinks of her appearance. Before now, she didn’t. She could just be herself; anybody else could take it or leave it. But now she had someone to impress, she wanted Erin to like her.

She goes back to the lab and rummages around for the deodorant she knows Abby has somewhere, locates it and sprays as much of it on herself as she can without becoming a flammable risk. She digs around in the backpack on her desk, finds an old packet of mints and eats five of them. It makes her eyes water.

“Holtzmann? Are you here? This place is kinda empty… and dark.” The voice is distant but unmistakable. Crap.

Holtzmann smooths down her shirt and trousers in a last ditch attempt to make herself more presentable. She breathes in deeply to steady herself, and then moves to the doorway of the lab. In the low light, she can just about see her. Erin is wandering a little hesitantly down the corridor with her back to Holtzmann, heels clicking on the hard floor.

“Holtzmann…? I feel like I’m in the beginning of a horror movie and I’m about to be murdered,” Erin laughs nervously, the sound echoing around the empty hallway.

“Erin,” Holtzmann calls out, annoyed at how her voice seems to falter. Erin turns at the noise, facing Holtzmann and steps forward into a lighter section of the hall. Time seems to stand still as they make eye contact. Erin looks perfect. She’s wearing a dress and heels and her hair is in a half-up half-down style; a stark contrast to her simple white coat and jeans, but still equally gorgeous. “Hi.”

“Hey, Holtz,” Erin says, voice soft, and Holtzmann feels her heart skip at the use of her nickname. She takes another step forward, edging closer to the door. “How’s your leg?”

“Still attached.” Despite the darkness, she manages to catch Erin’s smile. She gestures awkwardly to the lab. “Do you want to come in?”

“Yes, yes I-,” Erin walks forward until she meets Holtzmann in the doorway. “Holtz, I’m sorry. What happened at the hospital last time, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Holtzmann says quickly, because Erin’s here and that’s all that matters now. “Want to see where the magic happens?”

Erin smiles brightly and it makes Holtzmann feel fuzzy. “Yes! Yes, absolutely, lead the way,” she says excitedly, following Holtzmann into the room. “Do you mind if I take my shoes off?  My feet kinda hurt from walking here.”

Holtzmann frowns and checks her watch. “You walked here? That’s pretty impressive. Do you live around here, then?”

“No, I was already out,” Erin says, slipping out of her heels and placing them safely under a table.

Holtzmann feels her heart sink and she feels cold on the inside.

It’s Saturday. And Erin was already out before she came here. Which means she must have gone on her second date with x-ray man. Which means she got dressed up for him, not Holtzmann. Which means she doesn’t like Holtzmann, not in the way Holtzmann wants her to. Erin clearly sees this lab tour as a follow up to her date, a chance to meet with a friend. Holtzmann wants to punch herself in the face because how could she be this stupid? Be so stupid as to think Erin thought of her as more than a friend? She picks up a forgotten wrench from her desk and fiddles with it for comfort.

“You were on your date,” she says, tries to keep her voice even and avoids eye contact.

“With Phil? Yes.”

Holtzmann feels her heart plummet further and further until she’s sure it’s lying on the floor, ready for Erin to trample on until it’s completely crushed.

Erin must pick up on her sharp emotional change because she walks over to where Holtzmann is standing and says, “What’s wrong, Holtz?”

Holtzmann takes a deep breath and tries to speak in full sentences. “I don’t understand. I thought you were here because- I thought you liked me. But you – went out with him… and now you’re here with me. I just – I don’t get it.”

“Holtz,” Erin starts, reaches out to stop her fiddling with the wrench, covering Holtzmann’s hand with her own. It’s warm and soft, so different from when she was wearing her disposable gloves at the hospital. Holtzmann tries to prepare herself for whatever Erin’s about to say, but she’s not ready for the rejection. “I was on a date with Phil, but I left early.”

Holtzmann frowns, still confused. “You left? Why?”

Erin sighs, pulls her hand away from Holtzmann’s to brush a strand of dark hair away from her face. “We were talking about work, about patients, and I started talking about how you come in a lot. Phil said some… unpleasant things about you. I said that you were smart and funny and nice and that he should stop being so mean.”

“You said that about me?” Holtzmann asks, eyes wide, feeling the fuzziness return.

“Yes,” Erin says, looking a little puzzled by Holtzmann’s question. “Then Phil said that if I liked you so much, I should go on a date with you – he was being sarcastic, of course. So I said that I would go out with you and I left.”

Holtzmann feels her mouth drop open a little bit, leans back against her desk for support. “You just… got up and left?”

“In front of the entire restaurant, yes.”

Holtzmann pictures the scenario vividly in her imagination, grinning. “I wish I could’ve seen that.”

Erin chuckles. “Me too. And now I’m here. Because I like you,” she clarifies.

“You like like me?”

Erin drops her head slightly and laughs. “Yes, Holtz. I like like you.”

Before Holtzmann can reply with some incoherent nonsense, Erin leans in and kisses her. It’s soft, gentle, a simple pressing of their lips together. Holtzmann stands still, more than a little stunned, her brain sending a vague reminder that she should probably kiss Erin back. A thousand different thoughts race through her mind, she tries to catch them and interpret them all at once. Erin is kissing her. Erin like likes her. Erin told someone else that she was smart and funny and kind. Erin left her date in front of an entire restaurant to come and see her.

The kiss feels exactly like when Holtzmann’s blown herself up. She feels warm and tingly and dazed and she’s seeing stars.

After a few seconds, Erin pulls back and gives Holtzmann’s hand a squeeze, bringing her back to reality. “Okay?”

“Uhhh, yep,” Holtzmann manages, actively feels her brain reboot. This isn’t what she had expected. She expected to be the one making the first move, certainly didn’t foresee Erin being this forward if her previous blushing was anything to go by. “Message received, over.”

Erin smiles, eyes crinkling slightly. Holtzmann puts her wrench back on her desk, but Erin reaches for her hand again and doesn’t let go. She pulls her over to a workstation, points to a piece of equipment and says, “What’s that?”

"Aha, this bad boy is used for magnetic particle inspection. It detects surface discontinuities in metals like nickel and cobalt," Holtzmann explains, stroking the machine fondly. "Detects any kind of leak in the surface of the metal, which can stop things getting... messy."

 Erin looks a little concerned at her word choice. "I think you should buy another one of these just in case," she teases, then points to another half-built machine. "What's this one?"

Holtzmann picks it up, twirling it around. She passes it to Erin who handles it cautiously. “It’s meant to be part of a smaller of the Hadron particle accelerator, but it’s not finished yet. Obviously.”

“Like the one at CERN?”

“Exactly. I tried to steal the blueprints when I worked there, but I didn’t manage it. Top secret stuff. Trying to build a smaller one from memory is kinda difficult.”

Erin’s eyebrows shoot up. “You used to work at CERN?” She half-whispers, places the machine down carefully.

Holtzmann scratches the back of her head, a little embarrassed. “Ha, yeah. I, uh, don’t work there anymore, as you can see.”

“That’s amazing. You’re amazing. You’re so talented, Holtz,” Erin pulls her close and kisses her again. “You taste minty.”

“Well, you taste like,” Holtzmann pauses, makes a show of licking her lips to make Erin laugh, “Strawberry lip balm.”

At the mention of strawberries, Holtzmann remembers that she hasn’t eaten anything since lunch about seven hours ago. Erin must be thinking the same, because there’s a loud rumble and Erin blushes.

“Hungry?” Holtzmann smirks, feeling a little more in control now after the multiple kisses which had caught her off-guard.

Erin admits that she is, Holtzmann says she’ll order a pizza, a large one, with an unhealthy amount of toppings, particularly pepperoni because that’s what Erin says she likes.  While they wait for the pizza to arrive, Holtzmann continues the lab tour, with Erin pulling her excitedly by the hand to different machines and pieces of equipment, asking ‘What’s this? What does that do?’ Holtzmann would explain the invention, watch Erin’s eyes light up and then Erin would kiss her again, before moving on to the next machine. Holtzmann feels like she’s floating. She’s constantly moving between her comfort zone of talking about science and her uncomfortable zone and nervousness of being with Erin. The scientific lab setting seems to calm her, counteracting her usually fragmented speech so she can actually talk to Erin properly.

The tour is over in around half an hour, it wasn’t a particularly big lab but Holtzmann had plenty of impressively dangerous machinery lying around for Erin to look at. They sit side by side on Holtzmann’s now-cleared desk, legs dangling off the edge and wait for the pizza.

“Erin,” Holtzmann starts and hesitates, unsure of how to proceed, but the thought has been bothering her, so she goes ahead anyway. “Why’d you go out with Phil if you don’t really like him?”                                                                                                                                                  

Erin sighs and looks her hands, taking a while before she answers. “I don’t… have any friends. I get lonely, sometimes. So I thought I would go out with him, for the company.” Her voice is quiet and she smiles, but it’s forced. There’s sadness in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

Holtzmann understands completely. She used to be lonely, isolated. Sure, she had family, siblings, but no real friends to talk to. Now she had Abby and Patty, who were both kind and they loved and accepted her, she didn’t know what she’d do without them. Erin didn’t seem to have anyone.

“Sorry I ruined the mood,” Erin apologises, laughs awkwardly to try and lift it.

“You haven’t. I know how it feels.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m glad you came.”

Erin rests her head on Holtzmann’s shoulder. “Me too.”

For the first time since Erin got here, Holtzmann starts to relax because she lives for physical contact, likes to be touching people; she constantly taps Abby on the shoulder at work, clings on to her arm, hugs her; she even got Patty to give her a piggy back ride down the street a few days ago because her leg was hurting.

The pizza arrives and they sit opposite each other in the space underneath Holtzmann’s desk on a blanket she didn’t even know they had in the lab, cross legged with their knees touching. The pizza box is balanced on their knees, Erin looking both impressed and appalled at the sheer amount of toppings Holtzmann’s ordered.

“What’s it like to be a doctor?” Holtzmann asks, feeling bad that they’ve only talked about her own work.

“Stressful.”

“Do you see people die?” Erin nods, unable to speak with her mouth full of pizza. “That must be sad.”

“It is.”

Holtzmann doesn’t think she could watch people die, day in day out. Can’t imagine the toll it must take on someone to see that. She guesses at some point it must become normal and can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

“You know, if you think about it, there must be loads of ghosts in hospitals because of how many people die there,” Holtzmann comments, watches a small wave of fear pass over Erin’s face.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Erin asks. Holtzmann can’t identify her tone.

“Yes.”

“But you’re a professional scientist,” Erin counters, frowning slightly.

“Yes,” Holtzmann says again, unsure of where this was going and feeling a little nervous that Erin was going to start making fun of her.

“Why do you believe ghosts are real?”

Holtzmann shrugs, puts her slice of pizza down for a moment. “There are literal holes in the universe that can swallow whole planets and stars and light and nobody even knows where it goes. Why can’t there be ghosts if that can happen?”

Erin just smiles and nods her head. “That’s… a good point. I believe in ghosts, too.” She looks like she wants to say more, but doesn’t. Holtzmann doesn’t push.

They eat the rest of the pizza, talking in between bites, bouncing science jokes off each other, Erin describing the weirdest patients she’s ever had (Holtzmann being her favourite, a title Holtzmann proudly claims), and Holtzmann talking about the time she accidentally blew up a whole lab in college.

After a while, Erin checks her watch and looks genuinely surprised when she sees how late it is, then suggests it’s time to go home. Holtzmann feels a pang of disappointment, but Erin’s right – it’s near midnight and the exertion of all her nervous energy has left her almost exhausted. Holtzmann locks up the lab and the pair walk back through the dark corridors, Erin back in her uncomfortable heels.

Holtzmann stalls when they get outside the building. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

“Are you sure? It’s at least a half hour away?”

“Sounds perfect. The longer the better,” Holtzmann says and winks.

Erin laughs and takes her hand again, tugging her gently down the street. “You’re very charming.”

It’s a cool evening and surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night; neither of them are keen to disturb the peace so they walk mostly in silence, with Holtzmann not-so-secretly admiring the view of Erin walking in front of her. It’s dark out, but the streetlights are glowing, the light bouncing off Erin’s hair, making it look auburn. Holtzmann just stares after her, at their joined hands, still unable to quite believe what was happening. At one point, Erin turns around to ask her something and catches her staring.

“Do you want to walk in front for a bit so I can check out your bum, too?” She smirks and Holtzmann feels herself blush, a little lost for words. Oh, how the tables had turned. Erin pulls her closer, linking their arms so they can walk side by side. All too quickly they reach their destination, Erin stopping outside a block of apartments. "This is me. Thank you for a lovely evening."

"You're one hundred percent welcome. Thank you for coming." Holtzmann does a sort of bow, takes Erin's hand and kisses it.

Erin beams, blushing slightly. "You're sweet, Holtz." She smooths down Holtzmann's shirt, then gently tugs her jacket collar pulling her close for a goodbye kiss. It's deeper than the ones they shared in the lab, tastes salty from the pizza, but is undeniably sweet. With Erin in heels, Holtzmann becomes aware of the slight height difference between them, her head tilted slightly upwards into the kiss. There's a wolf-whistle across the street. Erin kisses her harder, moves her hands up to rest on Holtzmann's shoulders for a few moments, then pushes them gently apart. "Can I see you again?"

Holtzmann hums, brings a finger up to scratch her chin as though she's actually thinking about it. "I suppose you can," she grins. "Yes. Definitely." Erin starts to walk away. "No, wait! Wait. Can we take a picture? Please?" She holds her phone up.

Erin looks confused, but moves closer again. "Uh... yes? Can I ask why?"

"Ah, so I know this wasn't all a dream," Holtzmann explains. She also wants to show Abby. Erin smiles, shaking her head but gets in the camera shot. Holtzmann switches the camera to selfie mode, tries to fit them both in the frame but can't. "Here you take it, your arms are longer." 

Erin chuckles at the backhanded compliment and takes the picture, the shutter sound loud. "Okay?"

Holtzmann checks the picture. "Yes. Perfect. Okay. Bye, Erin."

"Bye, Holtz," Erin says, waves and then disappears into the building. 

Holtzmann practically skips home. She gets back and considers calling Abby she's so excited, but it's so late it's almost early and she can't imagine Abby being particularly pleased at receiving a phone call at this hour. Instead she gets straight into bed, suddenly feeling very tired. She'll tell Abby everything tomorrow. Holtzmann picks her phone from her bedside table and takes one last look at the picture of her and Erin, smiles so hard it makes her cheeks hurt and then falls asleep. 

Notes:

yayyy date night :)
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Chapter 6

Notes:

new chapter GB gang!
Berlin was super fun - go if you ever get the chance!
thanks so much for all your comments on the last chapter :)

“Holtzy are you sure this couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” Abby asks with a yawn, opening the door to her apartment in her dressing gown. “At work. Where I see you five days a week.”

Holtzmann bounces in, locates Abby’s white cat, Spectre, on the couch and picks him up, cradling him to her chest. “It absolutely could not wait a whole day, Abby.”

“Alright, but this better be good,” Abby says, shutting the door and moving into her kitchen. “I was just about to make a coffee, do you want one?”

“Can you make the one with the extra caffeine in?”

“Absolutely not, you already look like you’re gonna start climbing my walls and it’s 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning.”

Holtzmann pouts and sits on Abby’s couch, still holding onto Spectre who starts meowing loudly. Abby brings the drinks over a few minutes later, not trusting Holtzmann to help her make them, and sits next to her.

“So. What’s happened?”

“The best thing ever in the history of ever. Guess.”

Abby’s face falls. “Oh my God. You blew up the school, didn’t you?”

“No, better than that.”

Abby glares at her over her coffee. “The guy woke up from the coma?”

“Eh, that would be great, but no.”

Abby shrugs. “Holtzmann, I have no idea. With you it could literally be anything.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Holtzmann gives in, unable to contain her excitement any longer. “My hot doctor friend came to see me.”

Abby raises her eyebrows and looks genuinely surprised. “She did? Wow. How’d that happen? I thought you said she had a second date with x-ray man.”

Holtzmann beams, pleased that Abby had remembered the story. “Yes she did and she went on the date, but then x-ray man starting saying horrible things about me and she – Erin - stood up for me. And then he was all,” she puts on a deep voice, “’if you like Holtzmann so much you should go out with her instead.’ And she was like ‘Okay, I will’ and got up and left him in the middle of the restaurant and she called me and-“

“Holtz, slow down! I can’t understand you,” Abby interrupts. “Take a breath, okay.”

“Then she called me and asked if I could show her around the lab because she likes science and I said yes. So she came over and I did this tour of the lab-“

“Holtz, our lab isn’t even that big. Half of our equipment doesn’t even work.”

“I know, but she definitely enjoyed it. And we ate pizza… aaand she kissed me.”

Holtzmann still couldn’t believe it had actually happened, saying it aloud made it more real, in return making her feel even happier.

Abby grins. “She did? Nice job, Holtz!” She exclaims, patting her on the arm triumphantly.

“And then, because I am the perfect gentlewoman, I walked her home and she kissed me again. She kissed me, Abby! I didn’t even initiate it!” Holtzmann says proudly. Spectre finally wriggles out of her arms at the overly loud conversation and escapes into a different room.

“Well, I’m super happy for you. Do you have a second date planned?”

“Yes, but I don’t know when. Look I took a picture of us,” Holtzmann says, digs in her back pocket for her phone. “So I could show you it definitely, one hundred percent happened.”

She brings up the photo from the night before and shoves her phone at Abby, then gulps down her coffee. Abby smiles at the picture and then frowns slightly, pushing her glasses higher on her nose.

“Did you say her name was Erin?”

“Yes. Erin. Doctor Erin Gilbert. She works at the Hudson Valley hospital,” Holtzmann explains. Something flickers behind Abby’s narrowing eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Abby shakes her head. “Nothing’s wrong.” She hands Holtzmann her phone back.

“She’s super pretty, right?”

“Mm. Right.”

Holtzmann frowns because Abby is a lot of things, but she’s never subdued. “What’s up?” She tries again.

“Nothing,” Abby smiles. She pats Holtzmann’s leg. “Want to watch a movie? I have a free trial for Netflix if you want to check it out.”

It’s an obvious distraction technique but Holtzmann goes along with it anyway. They find some obscure documentary about ancient agricultural practices in Asia and go for that.

“I may fall asleep on you,” Holtzmann warns, snuggling in to Abby’s fluffy, dressing-gown covered side and resting her chin on her shoulder. “Also, I owe you a deodorant.”

---

 Erin had forgotten what it was like to feel this good. Can’t even remember the last time she did.

It’s the start of her Monday night shift, so she should feel terrible, but it’s only been a day since her impromptu date with Holtzmann and she still feels like she’s floating. Saturday evening had been perfect; the setting, the food and Holtzmann had been perfect. Her tour of the lab, while small and underfunded, was simultaneously the most impressive, informative and dangerous presentation Erin had ever seen.

She’d made Erin laugh countless times, making the date easy and comfortable, steadily building Erin's confidence right the way back up. But at times Holtzmann had seemed genuinely shy; Erin wondered how much of her bravado and swagger was actually real. After all, Erin had been the one to initiate the first, if not all, of the kisses. Not that she minded, of course, just that she expected Holtzmann to be a little more… dominant, based on her explicit flirting from previous meetings. Holtzmann certainly didn’t seem to expect Erin to be so forward either, looking more than a little stunned after the first kiss. It was adorable really, her blue eyes wide and pink mouth slightly open in shock.

Erin smiles at the memory and walks faster along her route to the hospital. Walking to work in the dark of night is so strange that she’s never really gotten used to it. In the winter months it’s heavy and depressing, walking to work in freezing cold and rain, and then walking home early in the morning when it’s still dark and somehow colder. But now, in summer, it’s better, still dark but not completely and it’s warmer, so she can get away with a jumper or just a t-shirt. It’s less isolating. She can walk more slowly, take in the hazy orange street lit view of the city, stop and get a coffee somewhere on the way home with the rest of the morning rush, pretend that she’s one of them and hasn’t just completed an exhausting night shift. She always feels so out of sync, out of step with everyone else. Just as the city wakes up, she’s going to sleep.

Erin walks into the main hospital entrance and spots Kevin, the gorgeous man-child of a receptionist she’d spent two months crushing on before realising he, while very attractive, was not particularly bright. He clocks her and grins, waving enthusiastically with his telephone. Erin suspected there was probably someone on the other end he was supposed to be talking to.

“Erin! Doctor Gilbert!” Kevin beckons her over with his pen.

A little confused, Erin wanders over, wondering what on earth he’s going to say. Their last conversation consisted entirely of Kevin talking about how his dog, Mike Hat, had separation anxiety and so Kevin started taking him to play on his Hide and Seek team, which had unfortunately cost them a place in the semi-finals.

“What’s up, Kevin?”

“There is a woman... here to see... you,” Kevin reads slowly from his notepad.

“Okay. What’s her name?”

Kevin frowns. “I don’t know. She’s a science woman.”

“A science woman?”

“Yeah. She’s called Doctor something. I thought she was a real doctor, but she said she’s a science doctor,” Kevin explains.

Erin feels her heart flutter at the thought of Holtzmann coming to see her and she can’t stop the smile spreading across her face. “Where is she?”

“She’s waiting outside. West block entrance.”

“Great. Thanks, Kev.”

He grins. “No problem, boss.”

Any other day, Erin would stay and correct him, tell him for the fifth time that she’s not actually his boss, but she’s too excited to see Holtzmann so she just grins and heads for the corridor. She reaches the entrance quickly, the automatic doors opening into the night. It’s one of the less popular meeting points for families of patients, particularly in the evening, so she’s not surprised to see that’s there only a few people milling around outside, some of them smoking.

She can’t see Holtzmann anywhere, so she stops and frowns, scans the shadows half-expecting the engineer to jump out and scare her. She hears someone call her name and whips around, trying to locate the direction it came from.

“Erin,” the voice says again, but she doesn’t recognise it. Someone steps out of the shadows and she doesn’t recognise them either, not at first. After staring for a few moments, she knows.

“Abby,” she says quietly. It’s unmistakably her. Her hair is the same colour, but longer now and tied up in a ponytail, and she's wearing similar if not the same glasses frames. Erin stands shock-still on the spot. She feels all the guilt and shame she’s tried to push away for the last twenty years wash over her in one cold wave. It feels like drowning. “What are you doing here?”

She can’t understand it. Why, after all these years, has Abby decided to come and see her at her workplace? To say what? That she could never forgive her for lying to her all those years ago? That she hated Erin, still. Her head starts spinning at the possibilities of what Abby will say, making her palms sweat and her heart rate rocket.

“Long time no see, right?” Abby begins, shoving her hands in her pockets and walking to meet Erin. “You, uh, still look like yourself.”

“So do you,” Erin says, looking around cautiously like she was about to be ambushed. “Why are you here? I don’t understand.”

“I’m here about Holtzmann.”

Erin can’t keep up. She’s trying so hard to understand the situation, but she feels sick and dizzy at the sight of her ex best friend after so long trying to forget. Abby knew Holtzmann? How? And why was she here to talk about her? It made no sense. “Holtzmann? Jillian Holtzmann?”

“Yes, we work together,” Abby supplies, as if it’s totally obvious.

Oh. So Abby was the Abby Holtzmann worked with. Of course she was.

“You’re Abby,” Erin says dumbly, desperately wants to sit down because she’s afraid her legs might start shaking. Surely Abby had told Holtzmann what a terrible person she was. How she lied to Abby for six months and then abandoned her, never even apologised for it. Now Holtzmann would hate her too, never want to speak to her again. The engineer had probably sent Abby here in her place to break things off with her, giving Abby the chance to yell at her. “I don’t- how did-“

“She showed me the picture of the two of you from the other night. I thought I recognised you, and then she told me your name so that cleared everything up.” Abby pushes her glasses further up her nose. “I gotta say I was surprised. Last time I saw you, you didn’t… go that way.”

“People change,” Erin says, tries to keep her voice smooth and even. “Did you tell her about me?”

“You mean did I tell her about the shitty thing you did to me?” Abby asks, voice rising for the first time. Erin tries hard not to flinch, thrusts her hands into her pockets so Abby can’t see them trembling. “No, I didn’t. I was tempted, but I didn’t.”

Erin looks up, hopeful. “You didn’t? Why?”

“Because she really likes you! Do you have any idea how happy she was after your date? She came over to my apartment yesterday morning just to tell me! She’s been talking about you non-stop today!” Abby yells, earning a few glances from bystanders. “I’m not going to ruin that for her,” she continues, voice softer now.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t screw this up, Erin. Holtzmann deserves to be happy. If you break her heart I will personally come after you,” Abby says, calmer now but the threat is undeniably there.

Erin knows she’s serious, knows the fierceness of Abby’s loyalty. She’s seen Abby punch people in the face for her when they were back in high school, just for calling Erin names. There was no telling what she’d do if Erin broke her new best friend’s heart.

“I know. I won’t hurt her, I promise,” Erin says, tries to be as sincere as possible because she never would hurt Holtzmann. Then again, Erin thinks, feels heavy doubt start creeping into the back of her mind, she technically already had; the night at the hospital when Phil had interrupted them and asked Erin out a minute after Holtzmann had. It wasn’t exactly down to Erin’s actions, but Holtzmann had definitely been upset, had been hurt because of her.

“We’ll see,” Abby replies with a shrug, in a tone filled with betrayal and past experience and it makes Erin’s eyes sting. “But if you do hurt her, I will hurt you.”

If someone had told Erin twenty years ago that today she’d be standing here being shovel-talked by her then best friend outside of her workplace, she wouldn’t have believed them. It’s painful to have Abby doubt the legitimacy of her feelings for Holtzmann and question her real intentions, but she can’t blame her. If she was in Abby’s position she’d probably do the same.

With her short speech seemingly over, Abby goes to walk away.

“Wait, Abby,” Erin calls after her and, to her credit, Abby does, turning back to face her expectantly. “I never wanted for this to happen – with us, I mean. I’m so sorry. For everything.”

Abby nods sadly, looking as though she wants to say something in return, but doesn’t. She walks away in silence until she’s swallowed up by the shadows again. Erin watches her go. Her palms are no longer sweating and her heart rate is back to normal, but she feels sick. Abby’s surprise appearance has blown her out of the water.

She never, ever thought she’d see Abby again after their high school graduation. They hadn’t spoken since. The long separation had given Erin time to lock her feelings of guilt and anxiety over abandoning her best friend away in a box, pushed far away in her mind. She was sure she’d thrown away the key. Now Abby had kicked the box open, smashing the lock so it could never be closed again, letting all of the guilt and hurt fly out like the evils of Pandora’s box. Erin feels like she’s suffocating. She retreats shakily back to the hospital, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Kevin waves at her again when he sees her return, but she doesn’t wave back, instead heading straight for the toilets because her vision is starting to blur from the tears building in her eyes. She bursts into the toilets, thankful that they’re empty because the tears are already starting to fall and quickly locks herself into one of the cubicles. Feeling unsteady, she sits down on the closed lid and buries her face in her hands, feels hot tears connect with her fingers, breathing harsh and uneven.

The year she went to college had quite possibly been the worst year of her life. It was the year she’d abandoned Abby, started a medical degree she didn’t even want to do and first started questioning her sexuality. First started questioning her feelings for Abby, too. Six months of dealing with whether or not she was in love with her best friend, knowing she was going to abandon said friend and taking final exams was so stressful Erin sometimes wondered how she didn’t end up in some anxiety-induced coma. The six months after that had been even harder. She spent the first semester at college with no friends, constantly thinking about how much Abby must hate her and trying to ignore her obvious attraction to other women because she knew her parents would never approve. The nightmares of her childhood ghost had returned, meaning she got next to no sleep, which in turn made it incredibly difficult to pass the first year.

The worst part was that she had no one to talk to, nobody to turn to for advice or reassurance. She couldn’t even talk to her parents about it because they’d never understand, couldn’t tell them about her ghost because as far as they were concerned that had been fixed many years ago in therapy.

Erin feels like she nineteen again – lost, alone and confused and wishing she was somewhere else. She cries harder, completely overwhelmed by everything she’s tried to ignore for so long, her heart aching. She hears the bathroom door swing open as someone else walks in and takes a deep, shuddering breath to try and calm down. Erin checks her watch – her shift starts in ten minutes and she’s a complete wreck.

“Erin? Are you in here?” Someone calls out to the entire bathroom.

She frowns and looks up.

“Kevin?”

“Yeah boss, it’s me,” Kevin whisper-shouts. Erin can see his shoes moving around from under the cubicle door. “Can you come out from the toilet?”

Erin sighs, wipes her face with the rough paper and flushes it. She unlocks the door and peers out cautiously. Kevin's face falls when he sees Erin’s.

“What are you doing here? This is the ladies bathroom.”

“Yeah, but I’m not using the bathroom so it doesn’t matter,” Kevin explains. He pushes the door open a little more, drawing Erin out of the cubicle. “What’s wrong, boss?”

“Nothing,” Erin sniffs.

Kevin isn’t convinced. “Did something happen?”

“Uh, yeah. It doesn’t matter, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” He looks so genuinely concerned that it makes Erin want to cry again. Erin nods. “Okay, boss.”

He pulls Erin into a warm hug, wrapping his arms all the way around her. The gesture is totally unexpected, but Erin embraces it, resting her head flat against his chest because he’s so tall. A few months ago, she would have given anything to be in this position, but for a completely different reason. She allows herself to relax into the hug, feels some of the stress and tension lift from her shoulders. She can’t even remember the last time someone hugged her. She’d forgotten how nice it felt to be held.

“You know I’m not actually your boss, right Kev?” She asks, voice muffled by Kevin’s ridiculous floral shirt.

Kevin laughs and it sounds like a song, Erin feels the vibration in his chest. “Haha, nice try, boss.” He pulls back after a minute or so, cupping Erin’s tear-stained cheeks. “Don’t be sad, Erin,” he says, as if it’s that simple and maybe it is for him.

“Okay,” Erin agrees, sniffing hard and smiling weakly.

“Great!” Kevin beams, as though the problem is solved. He squeezes Erin’s shoulders, shaking her gently back into reality. “Now get out there and save some lives!”

Her shift is a blur.

A trance-like state of treating patients. She can’t even remember half of it by the time it’s over.

On the way back to her apartment, she stops by a fast-food chain and buys the biggest burger they make, eating it while she walks. Normally, she tries to eat as healthily as she can as a small credit to her profession, but she’s past caring at this point. One of the best things about living in New York is that no one will judge her for eating a ‘Monster Whopper’ at nine o'clock in the morning.

Erin makes it home to her apartment in record time, peels her clothes off and stands under a hot shower for at least twenty minutes, letting the water hammer down on her shoulders in the hope it will dissolve some of her stress. She changes into pyjamas and eats half of tub of chocolate ice-cream way too fast, the cold making her head hurt. Tiredness, emotional and physical, suddenly hits her like a wall so she shuffles into bed, limbs heavy.

Her phone vibrates loudly on the bedside table. Erin groans and pulls the duvet up over her head, waiting for it to stop. It doesn't.

With a grumble, Erin reaches for her phone and pulls it under the covers. Incoming call – Holtzmann. Erin panics, because what if Abby’s changed her mind and told Holtzmann what a terrible person she is? She swipes to accept it anyway.

“Holtzmann?” She says nervously.

“Erin!” Holtzmann replies, enthusiastic and happy and Erin feels calmness return because clearly Abby hasn’t said anything. “How are you? How was your shift?”

Erin pauses. “I’m… good. It was tiring, but okay. How are you?”

“I’m feeling great because I have a plan for our second date,” Holtzmann says excitedly, Erin feels her attention peak and she stays quiet, ready to hear the plan. Holtzmann misses a beat. “That’s okay, right? You still want to go? I didn’t mean to assume, but I thought-“

“Holtz, it’s okay,” Erin reassures, a small smile tugging at her lips at the thought of seeing Holtzmann again. “I definitely want to go out with you again.”

She can almost hear Holtzmann’s grin on the other end of the phone. “Are you free this Saturday night?”

“I am.”

It wasn’t as though Erin had a particularly busy social schedule.

“Perfect,” Holtzmann says, rolling the ‘r’. “I can’t tell you the plan because it’s a surprise. I promise it’ll be fun though, just make sure you’re ready for seven o’clock.”

 Erin feels her smile grow wider. “I will, I can’t wait.”

“Sooo,” Holtzmann begins, tone playful, “Whatcha doing?”

Erin reaches out to touch the soft duvet currently covering her head. “I’m in my bed. What are you doing?”

“I’m at work.” Erin can just picture her, spinning around on her chair doing something dangerous. “Wait, did I wake you up?”

“No, I wasn’t asleep, I’m just… lying here, I guess.”

“Ooh,” Holtzmann says, then drops her voice exaggeratedly low and husky. “What are you wearing?”

Erin laughs out loud. “My pyjamas. They have moose on them.”

“Moose, huh? That sounds sexy.” Holtzmann pauses. “Erin?”

“Yeah?”

“What would you be doing if I was there?”

Erin groans loudly, feigning annoyance but unable to keep the laughter out of her voice. “Holtzmann! I refuse to engage in whatever this is.”

“Alriiight. Well, sleep tight Doctor Gilbert. I’m sure you’ve had a busy day saving lives.”

“Okay,” Erin agrees, disappointed that their conversation is so short, but she’s exhausted and Holtzmann certainly has work to do. “Have fun with your mini Hadron collider, Holtz. Thank you for calling me.”

Holtzmann is a miracle worker, Erin’s sure of it. In just a few minutes, she’s lifted her mood, not enough to completely forget what happened with Abby, but for long enough that she can go to sleep happy, excited for their next date, whatever Holtzmann has planned.

“Hey, no problem. Just checking in on my favourite doctor.”

“Goodnight Holtz,” Erin says, even though it’s morning. She yawns and feels her eyes start to close.

“Night Erin. See you Saturday.”

Erin falls asleep before she remembers to hang up the phone.

Notes:

poor Erin :( also protective!Abby, she'd totally shovel talk anyone for Holtz imo

next chapter is the second date yay!
please let me know your thoughts in the comments!! :))

Chapter 7

Notes:

5k words of Holtzbert date #2 :)
thanks so much for your comments!!

It’s 6:38pm.

Erin’s been ready for fifteen minutes. She likes to be early. Just not this early. She still has another twenty minutes to sit nervously on her couch and overthink things.

The ‘surprise’ element of Holtzmann’s planned date was worrying her. Erin wasn’t a fan of surprises, because from past experience they’d all been awful. Part of her still thought that maybe Abby had told Holtzmann about her and the surprise was that they would both show up and beat her up or something equally horrible. Erin takes a deep breath to try and calm down because surely that wouldn’t happen. Holtzmann wouldn’t do that.

It’s been a rough few days. There had been a particularly heavy shift at the hospital involving a messy car collision which resulted in the loss of three lives, one of which Erin had tried to save. The injuries had been catastrophic; realistically there was nothing she or the rest of the medical team could’ve done, but she still felt like a complete failure. Erin always wondered, usually in a cold sweat when she was trying to sleep, if she might have done something more, something different to change the outcome.

Her phone vibrating in her hand pulls her sharply out of her thoughts.

New Message – Holtzmann.

Erin feels her heart sink. Perhaps Holtzmann was going to call off the date at the last minute. She opens the text.

On my way now! Also maybe wear sensible shoes, sorry I forgot to mention that before :) x

Erin smiles at the message, but also feels a little guilty for doubting Holtzmann.

Can't wait, see you then x

Erin looks down at her black heels. They looked great with the knee-length purple dress she was wearing, but weren’t exactly what she would call ‘sensible’ shoes. She rummages around on her shoe rack to try and find a suitable alternative. She comes up with a pair of black sneakers and ankle boots, unable to decide between them.

She hears the buzzer to her apartment go off.

“It’s Albert Eintstein,” Holtzmann says over the intercom.

Erin laughs and buzzes her in.

Holtzmann wolf whistles as she enters through the door. “Nice dress!” She comments, noticeably looking Erin up and down. “You look wonderful.”

“You’re not too bad yourself,” Erin replies, admiring Holtzmann’s outfit. She's better put together than last time, having had more time to prepare. Her hair is in its usual pinned up style and her yellow reading glasses are perched on her nose. She’s wearing a pair of grey trousers and matching waistcoat, with a light blue shirt underneath, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. A bright, floral cloth tie and black and white oxford shoes complete the ensemble. “You look good enough to eat.”

Holtzmann raises a hand to her chest with an exaggerated gasp. “Doctor Gilbert! We haven’t even been to dinner yet,” she says in a scandalised tone. She pulls a single red rose out from behind her back and bows slightly, handing it to Erin. “For you, madam.”

Erin takes it and twirls it between her fingers, feeling a little tingly at the gesture.

“Too cliché?” Holtzmann asks nervously.

“No, it’s perfect,” Erin reassures her, because it is.

“It’s also a clue,” Holtzmann explains. Erin hunts around for a vase to put it in, filling it with water and setting it on her dining table. “For where we’re going.”

“A place with flowers?”

“Warm.”

“A garden?”

“Warmer.”

“Brooklyn Botanical Gardens?” Erin guesses.

Holtzmann’s mouth drops open a little and she frowns. “No… but I can see why you would think that. Damn, that would have been so good. I’m kind of annoyed I didn’t think of that. Well, never mind. You ready?”

“No, wait. Which shoes?” Erin asks, holding up both pairs.

Holtzmann hums as she compares the two choices. “Hmm… boots? It doesn’t matter, you look great anyway.”

Erin puts her boots and jacket on, grabs her bag and they walk down the stairs to the street. Holtzmann starts walking over to a motorbike parked up on the street and Erin stops.

“Safety first,” Holtzmann announces, passing Erin a helmet. Erin takes it reluctantly. “What’s up?” Holtzmann asks, picking up on her nervousness.

“I’ve never been on a motorbike.”

“Are you scared?”

“A little.”

“Don’t be,” Holtzmann smiles. “Just hold on tight and we’ll be fine. I won’t even pull any wheelies,” she winks.

Erin puts the helmet on. The visor is tinted yellow. “If you do the date is off,” she warns, not even half-joking.

“Scouts honour,” Holtzmann promises with a salute, and then puts on her own helmet. She gets on the bike and motions for Erin to get on behind her. Shakily, Erin complies. Holtzmann reaches back for her hands and wraps them around her waist. “Hold on tight,” she repeats, voice slightly muffled from the helmet.

Erin does. Holtzmann revs the engine a few times without them actually moving in what Erin assumes is for her benefit. Holtzmann holds her hand up in the ‘OK’ signal. Erin takes a deep breath, secures her grip and mimics the signal. Holtzmann revs again and this time the bike pulls away from the kerb and into the road.

Erin feels her grip tighten around Holtzmann's waist and squeezes her eyes shut. This is very different to driving a car. There were no walls or doors to box her in and protect her. It’s loud and she can smell engine oil and she’s completely exposed to the rest of the traffic. They travel for what feels like five blocks, swaying and swerving between lanes or vehicles, Erin can't tell and she doesn't want to find out.

“Open your eyes!” Holtzmann shouts and Erin’s slightly annoyed that she could even guess her eyes were closed.

“You open your eyes!” Erin yells over the traffic, Holtzmann cackles at her terrible comeback.

“Open them or I’ll do a wheelie!”

“WHAT?!” Erin shrieks and is so shocked by that hypothetical that she opens her eyes wide without even thinking. She peers cautiously over Holtzmann shoulder to get a better look.

Everything is yellow. The road, the traffic, the sky, all under the same yellow filter. It makes everything seem quieter, muted. For a moment she wonders what she must look like through Holtzmann’s bespectacled eyes.

They continue to zip down 9^th avenue and Erin finds herself starting to enjoy the ride, the wind rushing past them and the city a blur. Holtzmann turns left onto Gansevoort Street and begins to slow down, pulling up to the kerb and bringing the bike to a standstill.

Holtzmann removes her helmet and turns to Erin. “You okay?”

“Yes!” Erin exclaims, a little breathless from the thrill of it. Holtzmann grins and then helps her remove her own helmet.

“Aw, you have helmet hair,” Holtzmann comments, patting down a few of Erin’s fly-away strands.

“So, where are we going?” Erin asks, looking around for clues as Holtzmann helps her dismount from the bike.

“The High Line,” Holtzmann announces with a grin.

“The rail park?”

“The High Line is a 1.5 mile long elevated park created on a section of disused New York Central Railroad, recycling it into an urban park,” Holtzmann explains in verbatim fashion. “I thought we could walk along it. It passes into Chelsea Market so I thought we could get some food there and eat at the amphitheater overlooking 10^th Avenue.” She pauses for a moment, trying to gauge Erin’s reaction. “What do you say?”

“I say that sounds lovely,” Erin says, genuinely impressed by the plan.

Holtzmann beams, clearly pleased by her response. They cross the street to get to one of the entrances of the park. “I thought about going in the day, but Patty said it’s better to go at night because there’s less tourists and all of the lights in the city are on so it looks really pretty in the dark.”

“Who’s Patty?” Erin asks as they climb the stairs to the main walkway.

“My friend. She’s amazing. She knows everything about the history of New York. Look, she even told me some things about the High Line so I could impress you,” Holtzmann says, pulling a small piece of paper out of her trouser pocket. It’s covered in her illegible handwriting. “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.”

Erin swallows a small lump in her throat. Holtzmann was so… perfect? Obviously, she knew nobody was actually perfect, but Holtzmann was pretty damn close. It made her wonder why another woman hadn’t snapped her up quick already.

“You’re so brilliant, Holtz. To think of doing this.”

Holtzmann shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. “You’re pretty brilliant, too. ”

Erin smiles and takes her hand as they walk. “So, are you going to be my acting tour guide for the evening?”

“I guess so. It probably won’t be as good as the official tours they do.”

“It will,” Erin says firmly. “It’ll be better because it’s you. And I bet none of the other visitors get to take their tour guide home with them.”

Holtzmann smiles so wide it almost reaches her ears, a slight blush tinging her cheeks. She clears her throat and starts reading from her notes.

“Fun gay facts about the High Line. The co-founders who raise the money to operate the park, Robert Hammond and Josh..." she trails, off squinting at her handwriting, "Josh something, are two gay guys. The High Line also passes through many gay neighbourhoods such as The Village and Chelsea. Cool, huh?”

“Very,” Erin agrees, impressed that Holtzmann had somehow managed to take her to a park with LGBT history.

“Soo,” Holtzmann begins, “You’re bi, right?”

“I am.”

“Are you out? Like, to your family.”

Erin pauses. “Kind of. I mean, they know I’ve had serious relationships with women; they’ve met previous girlfriends – and boyfriends, too. I think they just try and ignore the girlfriend side of it.”

“Oh,” Holtzmann says, looking concerned. “Are they homophobic?”

Erin frowns. “I don’t think so. They just don’t understand it – being attracted to men and women. I don’t think they mean to be cruel, they’re just…”

“Ignorant?” Holtzmann supplies.

Erin nods. Her parents loved her, she knew that. They just expected certain things from her; a medical career, a husband, grandchildren to dote on. Anything that didn’t fit that mould seemed to frighten them and so they just ignored it.

“What about you? Are you out to your parents?”

“I don’t think I was ever really ‘in’,” Holtzmann laughs, gesturing to her appearance. “But they’re fine with it. They’re quite relaxed.”

“That sounds nice,” Erin says, wistful. She tries to imagine a childhood with relaxed parents.

The walkway passes right underneath the Standard Hotel and through a passage at 14^th Street. There are only a few other people on the pathway, most of them tourists taking pictures of the streets below. Erin pulls Holtzmann closer as they walk, linking their arms together and enjoying the shared warmth. Holtzmann tilts her head and kisses Erin’s cheek briefly.

Being with Holtzmann was so easy it was almost relaxing to be in her presence. It’s like nothing Erin’s ever had before. Sure, she’s been on plenty of dates but none like this, not where she can completely let go and just be herself. Before, she’s always held back just a little, afraid to say or do the wrong thing and offend the other person. Holtzmann certainly doesn’t seem to be one of the judgemental types to critique her every move, word, or laugh and it’s comforting to be around someone like that.

Maybe she’s just been on her own for too long.

“The inspiration for the High Line came from the 3 mile long Promenade Plantée, a tree-lined walkway in Paris which was created in 1993,” Holtzmann says, continuing her commentary. It seems rehearsed, like she’d practised reading her notes aloud, again making Erin wonder how much of her bravado was a front to hide her nerves.

“We are now passing through the Diller-Von Furstenberg area,” Holtzmann announces, like they’ve arrived at a train station. “On the lower side there is a small water feature and on the upper side there is a sundeck.”

Erin points to a large multi-coloured mural on the side of a building. “What’s that?”

Holtzmann blows her cheeks out and readjusts her glasses, squinting at the painting. “No idea. Probably some modern art piece no one understands.”

“Very informative,” Erin says with a slight smirk. Holtzmann nudges her playfully with her elbow.

“Ladies and… well, just lady, we are coming up on 10^th Avenue,” she says loudly, a few tourists turning at the sound. “Which means we are close to Chelsea Market, a popular food hall in the neighbourhood. God, I’m so hungry. I totally should’ve eaten something before we came.” She turns to Erin. “Are you hungry?”

“Always.”

Holtzmann laughs. “My kind of woman. Anyways, in the nineteenth century, freight trains ran on street-level tracks, creating dangerous conditions for pedestrians and so 10th Avenue became known as “Death Avenue,” she explains, reading from her piece of paper once again.

“Sounds like a rock band,” Erin comments.

“Death Avenue coming to a concert hall near you,” Holtzmann says in a deep voice.

“Supporting artists include Nightmare on Elm Street,” Erin laughs, continuing the joke.

“I’d totally go to that concert,” Holtzmann says with a grin. “Ah, we’re here.” She opens the door to the hall and holds it for Erin. “Hot doctors first.”

Erin chuckles. “How chivalrous. My knight in shining grey waistcoat.”

They buy a variety of snacks from the food hall, ranging from bread rolls and bagels to cheese and fruit. Erin reminds Holtzmann that they should probably buy something to drink too, so she goes off and comes back with two bottles of water. She says she’d buy wine but she doesn’t want Erin- or herself, as Erin points out- to be drunk for the ride back.

They make their way to the amphitheatre that overlooks 10^th Avenue. It’s definitely prettier in the evening; it’s darker now, the sun close to setting, turning the sky a brilliant orange. It reminds her of the lenses on Holtzmann’s glasses.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Erin says quietly as they stand and admire the view for a moment.

“You’re welcome. Thank you for letting me,” Holtzmann says, as though Erin’s doing her a favour.  

They sit on one of the steps, the amphitheater almost empty due to the time of night, and eat their ‘picnic’ as Holtzmann had called it. Holtzmann sits cross-legged on the decking and Erin does the same so that they can face each other, their food haul in between them. It’s an exact parallel of their first date under Holtzmann’s desk.

“Want to play a game?” Holtzmann asks, munching on an apple.

“Depends on the game.”

“Two truths, one lie. You say three things about yourself and I have to guess which one is the lie,” Holtzmann explains, looking far too excited.

“Okay, but you go first,” Erin says, putting down her half-eaten bagel to concentrate.

Holtzmann grins. “Excellent. Okay, here we go. One: I almost killed my PhD mentor in a lab accident. Two: I have six siblings - four brothers and two sisters. Three: I once accidentally poisoned myself with a radioactive substance.”

“Holtz, the fact that two of those things have to be true is slightly disturbing.”

“But which is the lie?” Holtzmann asks, waggling her eyebrows.

“Well, I’m hoping that you didn’t almost kill your mentor, so I’ll guess that that’s the lie.”

Holtzmann laughs into her apple and shakes her head. “Nope. I actually have five siblings, not six. Three brothers and two sisters.”

Erin groans. “Holtz! You poisoned yourself? And you almost killed your mentor?!”

“Gorin didn’t mind. She almost killed me a few times, too. Lab safety wasn’t really a priority of ours,” she grins. “Anyway, it’s your turn.”

Erin hums, trying to come up with a lie Holtzmann wouldn’t be able to spot easily. She wants to test her, make it a challenge, but she’s an awful liar, always has been. Holtzmann wiggles excitedly in preparation.

“I’m an only child.” Truth.

“I have two pet fish called anode and cathode.” A lie. Holtzmann snorts with laughter.

“I saw a ghost when I was a kid.”

Holtzmann looks a little surprised at the last statement. Erin shifts nervously, afraid she’s revealed too much.

“Hmm, well I didn’t see anything fishy in your apartment,” Holtzmann begins, laughing at her own terrible pun. “So I’ll guess that’s the lie.”

Erin sighs, slightly annoyed that Holtzmann guessed correctly. “Yes.”

“I got it right!” Holtzmann cheers, raising her apple in the air in celebration. “I win!”

Erin chuckles at her victory dance. “I wasn’t aware we were competing. What do you win?”

“Hmm,” Holtzmann hums, pondering her potential prize. “How about a kiss?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a win for me too, Holtz.”

Holtzmann tilts her head and smiles, a strand of blonde hair falling across her face. Erin fights the urge to pinch her dimpled cheeks. “Soo… do I get my kiss?”

Erin considers for a moment, because as much as she does want to kiss Holtzmann, she wants Holtzmann to kiss her, too. So far, she’d been the one to initiate all of them, while Holtzmann had been more of a recipient. She wants to test her, push her a little.

“Of course,” Erin promises. “Close your eyes.”

Holtzmann’s eyes light up and then squeeze shut behind her yellow lenses, a smile playing across her lips. Erin reaches across and takes both of Holtzmann’s hands in her own. She swears she sees a small shiver of excitement pass through the blonde.

“Lean in,” she commands.

Holtzmann does, lips even puckering into a small pout in preparation. She looks so adorable that Erin wants nothing more than to give in and kiss her straight on her pretty pink lips. But she doesn’t. Instead, she leans in and firmly presses her lips to Holtzmann’s small, upturned nose.

Shocked, Holtzmann opens her eyes and pulls away, laughing. “Erin! What the hell?”

“You said you wanted a kiss,” Erin explains coyly. “And you have lipstick on your nose.”

Holtzmann paws at her nose, trying to rub away the pink smudge and only making it worse. “That’s not the kiss I wanted.”

“No? Well, if you want something done properly then you should do it yourself,” Erin says, quoting her mother’s favourite phrase. She hopes it comes across as flirtatious. “If you want your kiss then you can come and claim it.”

Holtzmann eyes widen a little at her use of the word ‘claim.’

“O-okay,” she says, voice faltering slightly. She moves their food pile out of the way and sits forward, tongue peeking out to lick her lips. She seems hesitant, nervous even, at being put on the spot like this. Erin starts to feel guilty for doing it, but then Holtzmann leans in, presses their lips together, soft and gentle. Erin gets the sense that Holtzmann’s holding something back, wants more but isn’t sure how to ask for it.

After a few moments Holtzmann pulls back and then, of all the things to do next, boops Erin playfully on the nose.

“Now we’re even.”

“Okay, Rudolph.”

Holtzmann gasps and shoves her lightly, rubbing at her nose again until the mark is gone. “So cruel, Erin! I thought you were a sweetheart.”

“Treat ‘em mean keep ‘em keen,” Erin chuckles, but in reality she’d never do that.

“I’m very keen,” Holtzmann blurts out.

She goes quiet then, looking a little embarrassed at her admission and fiddling with her rolled up shirt sleeve.

“What made you think me seeing a ghost wasn’t a lie?” Erin asks to quickly change the subject, but genuinely interested in Holtzmann’s reasoning. Holtzmann looks grateful for the change in topic.

“Last time you asked me if I believed in ghosts, and you said you believed in them, too. So, if you saw a ghost when you were kid that would explain why you asked, I guess. So, was it a scary ghost? Or like a friendly one? Did you give it a name?” She asks, becoming more animated at the topic.

“I didn’t name it and yes, it was a scary one.”

It had been. Not violent or aggressive perhaps, but she and the ghost hadn’t exactly had a chit-chat at the end of her bed.

“Maybe me and Abby could check it out,” Holtzmann offers. “Do some research.”

Erin feels her mood darken at the mention of her past best friend, still struggling to get over seeing her again a few days ago. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Holtz. But thank you.”

Holtzmann shrugs. “Just a thought.”

They eat the rest of the food and watch the sun set into the west, the skyscraper lights slowly turning on to illuminate the city once again. The lights reflect in the lenses of Holtzmann’s glasses, creating bright freckles under her eyes. She looks beautiful. The setting sun casts a shadow that accentuates her facial features, the light breeze ruffling a few loose blonde curls. One of her grey shirt sleeves has unrolled itself slightly, now further down her arm than the other and her floral tie has become loose around the collar. Erin wants nothing more than to grab her by the tie and pull her in for a kiss.

It's strange, because normally Erin goes for the stereotypes of each gender; she likes feminine women and masculine men. Holtzmann doesn't fit either of those categories. She seems to be a melting pot, a mix of something soft butch but at the same time overtly feminine that Erin didn't even know she wanted until now. She glances over Holtzmann's blonde up-do, wondering how long her hair really is, what it would feel like to run her fingers through it.

“Holtz.”

She turns. “Mm?”

“Want to get out of here?”

Holtzmann looks around, confused. “Uh… no? I’m quite happy here, it’s nice. Why, is something wrong?”

Erin tries not to chuckle at her misunderstanding. “No, I mean do you want to drive me home- go home with me.”

“Oh. Ohhh," Holtzmann's cheeks tinge pink. "Oh! Yes. Yes, I would like… that." She stands up quickly, excited. "But you don’t drive a bike, Erin, you ride it. Poor terminology.”

“As long as I get to ride you later.”

They both stand still, Erin's not sure who's the most shocked by what she just said, but she certainly has no idea where that boldness came from. Usually, she’s more reserved, waits for the other to make their move before she follows with her own, but this feels different. With Holtzmann it feels different. She’s not afraid to speak out, be explicit about what she wants because if she can’t do that now, with Holtzmann, when can she? If you want something done properly, she recalls, you should do it yourself.

Holtzmann’s grin splits her face. “Wow. Totally! Let’s go!”

She dumps their rubbish in the nearest bin, tags Erin’s arm and yells ‘Race you!’, then takes off sprinting down the pathway.

Erin stares after her for a few moments and then jumpstarts into a run, chasing after her. She never thought that one day she’d be foot racing her date along an abandoned railway to a motorbike so that they could go back to her apartment and sleep together. It was a very un-Erin thing to do.

She can’t even remember the last time she ran somewhere. It’s exhilarating, gets the blood pumping as they say. She passes under the trees and thick foliage tunnelling the walkway; the green leaves blurring like the city did on the bike. Holtzmann is way ahead of her given her unfair head start, but she runs fast. Probably from the countless times she’s had to escape the lab to avoid blowing herself up, Erin guesses.

At one point, Holtzmann turns around and laughs at Erin, shouting ‘If I’m Rudolph then you’re Prancer!’ She starts doing an awkward gallop in what Erin assumes is an imitation of her running style. Erin laughs so hard she goes weak and gives up running, meeting Holtzmann back on the street a few minutes later. The blonde is already sitting on the motorbike with her helmet on and she revs the engine upon seeing Erin again.

“What happened, Usain Bolt? I thought you were right behind me,” Holtzmann grins, passing Erin her helmet again.

“You left me for dust,” Erin says, trying to ignore the stitch in her side.

“I wanted to come first.”

Erin can’t even pretend that Holtzmann hasn’t walked straight into that one.

“I’ll make sure you do,” Erin promises and winks.

The blonde’s flirting techniques have clearly started to rub off on her. She doesn’t wait to see Holtzmann’s reaction, instead putting her own helmet on, the world once again returned to yellow. She slides on behind Holtzmann and squeezes her waist, causing her to rev the engine again as they join the flow of traffic.

The journey back is longer than Erin remembers. She spends most of it focusing on her grip of Holtzmann’s waist, the soft fabric of her grey shirt under her fingers, imagining the pale skin that lies underneath and how she would touch it. She wonders if Holtzmann is thinking a similar thing.

After what feels like forever, they pull up to the kerb outside Erin’s apartment. Erin jumps off the bike straightaway, taking her helmet off. Holtzmann dismounts more slowly, as though she’s stalling, waiting for… something. Permission, perhaps?

“Want to come inside?”

“Yes,” Holtzmann answers. “Please.”

Erin smiles at her mild manners, taking Holtzmann’s free hand and leading her up the steps to her apartment. Once inside, she places both of the bike helmets on her kitchen table and turns on a lamp to scare away the shadows.

The light falls behind Holtzmann, creating a halo effect that makes her look almost angelic. Erin takes a slight step forward and leans in for a tentative kiss, moving her hands up to rest on Holtzmann’s shoulders, bringing her closer. Her blue eyes are wide behind her yellow lenses and she seems hesitant; so, so different to her eagerness in the park, her excited reaction to Erin’s flirting that led them to race back to her bike. It seems as though now it's actually happening, the blonde is unsure.

“You okay?”

“Mm. Just a bit… nervous.”

Erin pulls back instantly. “Holtz, we don’t have to do this. If it’s too soon, we don’t have to.”

“No, I want to. I really want to,” she says firmly, reaching out to touch the soft cotton of Erin’s purple dress. “I just don’t want to mess this up.”

“You won’t,” Erin reassures her, unsure of whether she’s talking about them sleeping together or whatever else is between them. “I really like you, Holtz. That’s not going to change. Okay?”

Holtzmann answers with a kiss, deeper than the previous ones she’s given, like she’s finally letting go of any inhibitions she once had. She moves her hands, which had previously hung loose at her sides, up to rest on Erin’s hips, walking them backwards until Erin feels herself come into contact with the kitchen counter.

“Up,” Holtzmann murmurs against her lips, but it’s a question rather than a command.

Erin reaches a hand back onto the counter to raise herself, at the same time Holtzmann moves her hands to help lift her up onto the counter. The surface is cold under her thighs, sending goose bumps up her arms. She gets her wish from earlier, pulling Holtzmann close again by tugging gently on her tie, the blonde smirking into the next kiss.

“You like my tie?” Holtzmann whispers, her breath tickling Erin’s lips and sending a shiver down her spine.

“I do,” Erin whispers back, stroking the silky material. “Almost a shame we have to take it off.”

Holtzmann hums her approval and kisses her again, lips soft and undemanding. Her hands shift up slightly to just below Erin’s ribs, warm and firm, holding her steady. Erin reaches between them, fingers working to loosen the tie, but it’s difficult when her eyes are closed and her lips are still pressed against Holtzmann’s.

With a small huff, she pulls away and turns all of her attention to undoing the tie, fumbling with the fabric. She tilts her head to get a better view, Holtzmann taking advantage of the new angle by pressing her lips just below Erin’s ear and working her way down to her collarbone. Erin’s hands still as the blonde sucks lightly at her pulse, not enough to leave a mark but enough to distract her, nails digging into Holtzmann’s shoulder. Holtzmann picks up on the change and bites down a little harder.

“You can’t leave a mark,” Erin says reluctantly, bringing one hand up to Holtzmann’s jaw to relieve the pressure. Holtzmann pulls away, looking puzzled. “Work,” Erin explains, remembering all the times she’s had to tie her hair back to keep it out of the way. She can’t imagine the embarrassment if she forgot herself and had to wander around the emergency department with a hickey. However, she thinks, it might be nice to show it off in front of a certain radiographer.

Holtzmann nods silently and waits, giving Erin a small reprieve so that she can finally get the tie from around her neck, depositing it beside her on the counter.

“Better?” Holtzmann asks with a bemused expression.

“Better,” Erin confirms and uses the hand on Holtzmann’s jaw to bring her close again, kissing her hard. Holtzmann bites gently at her bottom lip, gives it a slight tug and then soothes the area with her tongue. Erin can’t even pretend she doesn’t like that, barely able to suppress a shiver that Holtzmann seems to revel in. She slides her hands from the Holtzmann’s shoulders to her neck, draws her in closer, the blonde stepping in between Erin’s legs, close enough to push her down flat on the counter and have her here if she wanted.

Too close. Erin’s nose bumps against the cold metal of Holtzmann’s glasses as she moves in for another kiss. Sighing at the offending obstacle, she once again pulls away, moving her fingers up to the frames and slipping them off Holtzmann’s nose, folding them neatly and placing them with her tie. Erin decides that her eyes are an even brighter blue without the yellow lenses covering them.

“Oh no,” Holtzmann says suddenly, face serious.

“What?”

“Erin, I’m dyslexic.”

“I know,” Erin frowns, failing to see how this would affect either of them.

“But Erin,” Holtzmann starts, a smile starting to form on her lips, “How am I going to be able to read your body language?”

Erin shuts her eyes and groans loudly, head falling forward onto Holtzmann’s shoulder. Holtzmann just laughs, obviously pleased with her ridiculous joke.

“How long have you been thinking that one up?”

“Hmm, like two seconds. Literally just came to me. I am kind of a genius.”

Erin pulls back and rolls her eyes. “Not a comic genius, though.”

“We shall see. Did I ruin the mood?”

Erin tuts, shaking her head like she’s annoyed. “Holtz, just… get in the bedroom before I change my mind.”

Holtzmann raises an eyebrow in challenge, eyes sparkling. “Ooh, bossy. I like that.”

“Holtz!” Erin exclaims, acts like she’s scandalised by the notion.

“Right. Right! Bedroom!” She spins on her heel, looking around the apartment. “Where’s that?”

“Behind you on the left.”

"Aha!"

Holtzmann moonwalks to the door, maintaining eye contact and beckoning Erin over with her finger. Erin stays sat on the counter, staring after her with a grin, feels something twinge in her chest. She's certainly never had a partner who moon walked into their first sexual experience before. She can't say she would want someone who wouldn't do that after this.

Holtzmann opens the door to her bedroom, peers inside and then enters meaning Erin can't see her anymore. That doesn't mean she can't hear her.

"Wow, it's so clean in here," Holtzmann muses, not too loudly so Erin's unsure if she's talking to her. "You can like... see the floor and stuff."

Erin chuckles, wondering what Holtzmann's apartment must look like if her messy workplace is anything to go by.

"Erin?" Holtzmann calls, voice muffled by the walls. "Get in here quick, I don't want you to change your mind!"

As if she ever would. As if she even could by now.

"Coming," she calls back, slipping off the counter.

A laugh.

"You will be."

Well, this was certainly going to be a fun evening.

Notes:

yayyy sexy times ;)
favourite parts? least favourite parts? please let me know your thoughts!!

Chapter 8

Notes:

slight trigger warning for implied/referenced self-harm, but imo it's not horrendous so :/

more holtzbert fluff and zero plot!! :)
i have two more chapters planned for this fic (and there will be plot in them i promise haha)

It’s light. But it’s raining. Holtzmann can hear it hammering against the window. So much for summer.

Erin’s still asleep, eyes shut, chest rising and falling under the duvet that’s pulled up to her chin. Her hair is slightly mussed, bangs swept messily across her forehead, the chestnut colour a sharp contrast to the white of the pillow. Her cheeks are tinged pink, flushed with the warmth of sleep.

Holtzmann can’t help but stare. She wants to reach out and touch. Trace the curve of her cheekbone, lips, the dip of her shoulder. Wake her with a kiss or a caress, something romantic. But she’s too scared.

If Erin wakes up she might ask her to leave. Holtzmann’s never stayed overnight at another woman’s place before. In the past, they’d always gone back to her apartment. It was easier that way; the women could leave when they wanted, usually straight after, and she didn’t have to worry. That’s the way she liked it, inside her comfort zone.

But now she’s in someone else’s apartment and she’s stayed the night. She’s not sure what the protocol is, how to act, how to behave. It’s taken a long time to learn the complex aspects of social situations. What people actually mean when they imply something, when people say they want something but they actually want the exact opposite and expect her to know.

In the very early days working at Kenneth, she’d been dating a girl she’d met in a nearby library. They’d been on a few dates; the furthest Holtzmann had gotten in a while. She thought that it had been going well, allowed herself to start getting excited because finally it might actually work out for her. Until one evening. They’d been texting, or Holtzmann had been trying to text her anyway. The girl said she was upset, wouldn’t tell her what about, and asked for Holtzmann to not text her for a while. So she didn’t. She waited three days before texting again. The girl never replied.

Confused, she asked Abby what she’d done wrong. With a pained expression, Abby explained that when someone says they want to be left alone, they usually want the opposite, that the girl actually wanted Holtzmann to comfort her. Even more confused, Holtzmann asked why the girl didn’t just tell her that’s what she wanted. Abby said people were strange; they didn’t make a whole lot of sense to her either. Holtzmann asked if she thought the girl would ever text back. Abby said probably not, and gave her a hug. And that was the end of that.

Last night Erin had asked her to stay. But did that mean she actually wanted her to? Or did it mean, ‘I don’t want to be rude, but please leave.’ Was it an offer she was supposed to decline? Holtzmann didn’t know, she’d never been in this situation before and she didn’t have Abby or Patty to explain it for her.

Then again, she tries to reassure herself, Erin had offered her a pyjama top to sleep in, saying that she couldn’t sleep without wearing one herself. Erin’s top had moose on it; Holtzmann recalled it must’ve been the one she was wearing when they spoke on the phone a few nights ago. So surely, if Erin didn’t want her to stay, she wouldn’t have offered her an item of her own clothing, would she? Which meant she truly did want her to stay. Maybe. Holtzmann hadn’t put the pyjama top on in the end. Would Erin be annoyed that she hadn’t?

“Holtz?”

Erin’s looking straight at her. Her eyes are soft and blue, slightly dark around the edges where her makeup has smudged. Holtzmann wonders how long she’s been awake; if that was the first time she called her name.

“Yeah?”

“You okay? You were off with the fairies a little bit.”

Erin shuffles closer and reaches out, covering Holtzmann’s hand, which had previously been tracing invisible patterns on the pillowcase, with her own, stilling the movement. The contact is grounding, brings her back to reality and away from the uncertainties spinning round and round in her head.

“I’m okay,” she replies, voice carefully neutral.

Erin smiles. “Good. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” Holtzmann replies, somewhat reassured by the trivial questions. The sheets are soft and warm and smell like a mixture of washing powder and Erin’s perfume. She misses a beat. “Did you?”

Erin nods, shrinking further under the duvet. “I think you tired me out.”

Holtzmann smiles at the memory of the night before, of having Erin underneath her, kissing her, touching her. “I’ve been told I’m very energetic.”

Too energetic, sometimes. She’d never really developed the ability to be still for long periods of time. Abby had since gotten used to her dancing and twirling around the lab, but she was more than a little concerned to start with, especially when the blowtorches were involved. It was just so difficult to stay in one place when she had so many ideas racing through her mind, all competing for her attention. One of the main reasons she’d picked the rail park for the date was so she’d be able to move around, free and unconfined, without getting restless.

Erin chuckles. “You certainly are.” She squints at the window and frowns at the sight of rain. “Nice day. What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

She has no idea where her watch is. She can’t even remember taking it off, but she must have because it’s not on her wrist.

“There’s a clock on the table behind you.”

Holtzmann turns over, the sheets rustling. She pauses. It’s an analogue clock with a face and hands, not digital. She stares at it and watches the hands blur.

“I can’t read it.”

“What?”

“I can’t read it because I don’t have my glasses. Dyslexia strikes again,” she says in a weird accent, trying to laugh it off. At least she can remember where her glasses are. They’re still sitting on Erin’s kitchen counter along with her tie.

“Oh, of course. I’m sorry.”

What Holtzmann doesn’t expect is for Erin to prop herself up on her elbow and lean right across her, bringing them almost nose to nose, reaching for the clock. She looks at the time, frowns and then turns her gaze back to Holtzmann, their faces inches apart.

“It’s early, just gone seven.” Erin leans in and kisses her slowly, lips soft and warm. Her hair falls from its place behind her ear and tickles Holtzmann’s cheek. Holtzmann’s never had a good morning kiss before. She doesn’t want this one to end, but before she can do anything Erin pulls back. “So, what do you want to do?”

“What are the options?”

“We could get up properly, have breakfast. We could go back to sleep. We could stay here and do something,” Erin says suggestively, slips a hand under the duvet to trace Holtzmann’s collarbone. She kisses her again and it makes Holtzmann feel tingly on the inside. “What do you want?”

Holtzmann’s beyond pleased that Erin hasn’t even listed her leaving as an option. “I want to stay here and do something.”

Erin hums in approval and kisses her again, deeper and more heated. Holtzmann feels the fingers at her collarbone move lower, brushing lightly over her nipple in a small circle. She shivers at the sensation, but pulls away from the kiss, a little embarrassed.

“That’s not what I meant. Could we just… cuddle?” It wasn’t an option on the list and now she feels stupid for suggesting it. “It’s a bit vanilla, I know.”

Erin shakes her head. “It’s not. I’m sorry I assumed that’s what you wanted,” she says sheepishly.

“I do want that, but not now. Maybe later?” Holtzmann feels like she’s pushing her luck.

“Later,” Erin agrees with a brief kiss. She moves away, sliding the covers off herself. “I’ll be right back, I just need to pee.”

“Have fun.”

Erin chuckles, amused by her choice of words and leaves the bedroom.

Holtzmann sits up, takes a deep breath in and then blows her cheeks out loudly in relief. She’d just experienced an entirely new social situation with no help and many complications such as kissing, nudity, telling the time and Erin’s general presence and she hadn’t screwed it up. She could even call it a success; nobody had been upset or offended, she hadn’t stuttered, Erin didn’t want her to leave and Holtzmann had gotten what she wanted – the cuddling. Abby was going to be so proud of her! She was in half a mind to call her right now and declare her achievements, but calling a woman while at another woman’s apartment was probably the wrong thing to do.

She shakes herself out of her happy daze and goes on a hunt around the bedroom, locates her underwear and slips it on, feeling somewhat less exposed now she’s not butt naked. She finds the t-shirt Erin offered her last night, which is covered in penguins wearing woolly hats, and puts that on, too, before burrowing back under the duvet. Erin clearly had a thing for animal print pyjamas. Holtzmann makes a mental note to tease her about it later.

A few minutes later Erin returns, now wearing a pair of very short pyjama shorts and holding two glasses of water. Holtzmann tries not to let her gaze linger too long on Erin’s legs, but fails miserably. Erin catches her looking.

“I thought you wanted to cuddle?” She asks with a slight smirk, handing Holtzmann a glass.

Ah. Flirting. Now this she can handle. “I didn’t say which part of your body.”

Erin arches an eyebrow, sipping her water in silence, inviting Holtzmann to say something else. She doesn’t. “Want me to get your glasses?”

Holtzmann nods and watches Erin retreat again. “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave,” she calls after her.

She hears Erin start laughing. Holtzmann takes a few big gulps of water, not realising how thirsty she was. Abby’s always telling her to drink more, and ‘I don’t mean alcohol, Holtz.’

Erin reappears, dropping her glasses down onto the bed. “Here you go, Rudolph.”

Holtzmann groans dramatically at the nickname. “That better not stick.”

That’s a lie. She’d be quite happy to let Erin call her that forever if it meant they were still dating. She picks her glasses up and puts them on the bedside table next to the clock. Erin slips back into bed beside her, pulling the covers back up to her shoulders.

“Hey, Erin? Do you want me to make a joke about glasses and women sitting on my face?”

“I think we’re okay, Holtz. Come here,” Erin beckons her closer, patting the pillow beside her. Holtzmann beams and shuffles into the space, resting her head on Erin’s shoulder and turning to lie on her side, curling an arm around Erin’s waist. Erin relaxes into the touch, one hand stroking Holtzmann’s arm and the other combing through her hair. The sensation makes Holtzmann’s eyes grow heavy so she shuts them.

“Erin?”

“Hmm?”

Holtzmann feels the vibration through Erin’s chest.

“I have some questions.”

“Oh? Ask away.”

It’s been bothering her since last night, and maybe this isn’t the time she’s supposed to bring it up, but she can’t stop now. Curiosity always killed the cat.

“Last night you were saying something about how your parents have met past boyfriends and girlfriends. So was it like a serious relationship? A long term thing?”

“Yes. Some of them were long term.”

Holtzmann tries to imagine being in a relationship long enough to meet someone’s parents and what it would be like to meet Erin’s parents. A whole new social situation to try and navigate. Just thinking about it makes her brain hurt.

“Can I ask how long?”

“The longest relationship I’ve had is four years with a guy, but that was a while ago. The longest I’ve been with a woman is just under three years. That was the last person I dated.”

Holtzmann feels her head spin, eyes opening wide. She touches the soft fabric Erin’s top to calm herself. Four years?! She couldn’t even maintain a relationship for four months! Erin had so much experience where she had literally none. She tries not to panic and asks another question.

“What happened?”

Erin sighs. Holtzmann fears she’s pushed too far.

“With the guy, it just… didn’t work out. We grew apart. With the woman,” Erin pauses. Holtzmann feels her chest rise higher, like she’s taking a deep breath. “She cheated on me. For six months.”

“What? Why?” Holtzmann blurts out, shocked. Why on earth would anyone in their right mind cheat on Erin? Why would anyone do that at all? “Sorry, that was rude of me to ask.”

“It’s okay. I don’t know why. I guess it can get difficult with my job – working night shifts, and long ones at that. We didn’t get to see each other much at times so I assume that’s the reason, but it’s not like I asked.”

“How did you find out? Did she tell you?”

A long pause. Curiosity killed the-

“I walked in on them… you know. I got sent home ill from work and caught them.” Erin sounds so calm, like she’s talking about something she read in the newspaper not someone breaking her heart into a million pieces. Holtzmann feels a little sick, so she grips Erin tighter and nuzzles into her neck, unsure of what she’s trying to achieve but hoping that it works. “But that was a few years ago now. I haven’t dated anyone seriously since then, for obvious reasons.”

“People are horrible,” is all Holtzmann can think to say. She wishes she’d never asked. Hindsight was a wonderful thing.

Erin laughs and it sounds slightly bitter. “Some of them are. What about you? You ever been cheated on?”

“No,” Holtzmann admits, but then again she’d never really dated anyone. That didn’t necessarily mean someone wouldn’t do that to her and she found that slightly terrifying.

“Good,” Erin says firmly, giving her arm a squeeze. “You’re a good person, Holtz. You don’t deserve that.”

Holtzmann frowns at the possible subtext of those words. Did that mean Erin thought she had deserved it? That she wasn’t a good person? She can’t think of a decent answer and isn’t sure Erin wants one anyway, so she kisses her neck in reply, breathing in the faint scent of perfume.

“What about your relationships? I bet you’ve had your fair share of girlfriends,” Erin says, tone lighter now, more playful.

“Not really.”

“No?” Erin sounds like she doesn’t quite believe her. “Come on, it’s your turn to share personal information.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Holtzmann says quietly, and it sounds like an excuse, a poor one at that, but it isn’t. “I’ve never… I never really – I don’t-“ she stutters and stops.

Erin kisses her forehead and strokes her hair again. “Take your time.”

“I’ve never dated anyone seriously.”

“What was the longest?”

Holtzmann considers lying. She could. Erin would likely never find out. She could say it was a year, a year and a half, long enough to be real, but not serious.

“Three months. In college.” It feels like a confession, a dirty one. Erin stays silent for a long time. Holtzmann fears that she’s rejecting her, then realises Erin’s just being polite, waiting for her to continue. “I just find it difficult. Talking to people – when I really like someone, it’s a struggle.”

“That’s understandable.”

“I thought that by now I would have dated more people. So that when I met someone I really, really like- you, for example- I would know what I’m doing, I would have more experience. That probably doesn’t make any sense,” Holtzmann rambles off.

“No, that does make sense. But Holtz, no one ever really knows what they’re doing.”

Holtzmann frowns, but feels a glimmer of hope. “Really?”

“Really. Just because I’ve had long term relationships, doesn’t mean I’m good at them. Every person you date is different, they want and like different things. You just have to wing it and hope,” Erin laughs. “Well, that’s what I do anyway. Clearly, I’ve not been that successful so far, so you probably shouldn’t take my advice.”

“No, it’s good advice. It’s reassuring. But… how do you find out what people like? Is it like trial and error?”

“You could always ask them.”

Holtzmann considers that for a moment. “I guess so.” A pause. “Oh! You want me to ask - okay. Erin, what do you like?”

“I like dogs. I like science. I like the colour purple. I like-“

“The book or the actual colour?”

 “Both.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“I like white wine, helping my patients, pepperoni pizza and chocolate ice-cream. And I like you. A lot,” Erin finishes with a kiss to her hair. “What do you like?”

“I like strawberry milkshakes, cats and dogs, but cats are better, just saying. I like building new things at work, sour cream and onion Pringles – those are the best ones, naps and Abby and Patty,” Holtzmann trails off, feeling a little guilty for listing her friends last.

“Tell me about them. Abby and Patty, I mean,” Erin says, quieter than before.

“Okay,” Holtzmann agrees, slightly puzzled by the request. “Abby works with me, but you already knew that. I’ve known her for… eight months now. She’s amazing – she lets me fall asleep on her sometimes. And she eats lots of this weird soup and has a cat called Spectre, but he doesn’t like me for some reason. She helps me out with… things.” Social things, Holtzmann thinks but doesn’t say. “She’s a good friend, my first real friend actually.”

“She sounds nice,” Erin says, but her voice sounds sort of strangled, almost like she’s jealous. Holtzmann remembers Erin said she got lonely sometimes, that she didn’t really have any friends. She snuggles in closer, squeezes her arms around Erin’s waist as though she’s trying to force those feelings out of Erin’s body. “What about Patty?”

Holtzmann grins at the thought of her friend. “She’s a big friendly giant made of sunshine. She works at the MTA but she ought to be like a History professor or something. She helped me choose where to take you last night. I think you would like her. But one time she didn’t speak to me for a whole week because I said I didn’t own any Prince albums. Like, she blatantly ignored me every time I walked past her office thing at the tube station. But anyway, they’re both super amazing and I’m really lucky to know them. They’re like my big sisters.”

“I’m glad you have them.”

“Mm. Another thing I like is when you call me Holtz.”

“Because it’s your nickname?” Erin asks and Holtzmann nods. “That’s something I wanted to ask you. Why do you go by your surname and not your first name?”

“Holtzmann sounds way cooler,” she says conclusively, tracing her fingertips along the hem of Erin’s top, restless now.

“You don’t like Jillian?”

“Nope.” Holtzmann props herself up on her elbow and leans over Erin. “Doesn’t suit me.”

“I think it’s pretty. Like you.”

Holtzmann grumbles and sits up properly, moving one leg over Erin’s waist, sitting on her in some kind of protest.

“Are you blushing?” Erin looks smug.

“No,” she mumbles and leans down to kiss the smile off Erin’s lips, tugging at the hem of her top again. “Can we do… things?”

“Things?” Erin asks, all innocence but there’s something in her eyes that makes Holtzmann feel warm.

“You know… sexy things?”

Erin’s hands smooth up and over her thighs, settle on her hips and squeeze, the pressure firm. “Like what?”

“Uhh,” Holtzmann starts intelligently. “Things with my mouth.”

Erin sits up with Holtzmann’s legs still wrapped around her waist, bringing them nose to nose. “Like this?” She kisses her hard, with an unexpected force that leaves Holtzmann breathless. Erin pulls away, eyes more black than blue now, cheeks flushed.

Holtzmann starts to doubt if this is even real, because it’s going too well, too perfectly, she hasn’t even screwed up yet and there have been so many chances. This must be some kind of fever dream; she’ll wake up at any moment and it will all be over; she’ll be back at her desk stripping copper wiring and Erin will be going out on another date with Phil.

“Other things, too.”

“Oh? Maybe you should show me,” Erin says in a voice like honey. Holtzmann wonders if she tastes as sweet.

She got this so, so wrong. She had thought Erin shy, nervous even when they first met. She’d blushed and seemed almost embarrassed when Holtzmann had flirted with her; so much so that she thought Erin was somewhat inexperienced, had probably never even considered dating a woman before. Clearly, she was wrong. Erin knew what she wanted and how to get it, but it was as though she didn’t have anyone to give it to her. Holtzmann desperately wants to be that person, to be able to give her everything and anything she wants.

She moves off of Erin’s lap to kneel between her legs, pushing her ridiculous moose top up so she can kiss a line down to the waistband of her shorts. Erin lifts her hips as she pulls the fabric down her legs and past her ankles, depositing it to the side. Holtzmann leans down and in, starts at Erin’s knee and presses wet, open-mouthed kisses down her thigh, scraping her teeth lightly over the skin. She feels Erin shiver and bites down a little harder and Erin doesn’t tell her to stop this time. Holtzmann pulls away to admire the new red mark blooming on her skin and immediately notices another.

A thin white line travels the width of the inside of Erin’s thigh; a scar. She didn’t see it in the dark of last night and instinctively she looks for others but there aren’t any more, just the one. Holtzmann can’t doubt how it got there, who put it there. On impulse, she reaches out and traces the length of the scar with her fingertip, feeling cold on the inside. Erin stiffens at the touch, making Holtzmann panic and look up.

Erin looks so vulnerable, eyes wide and startled, cheeks lacking the blush they held, so different from only moments ago. She’s truly blown it now. She’s upset Erin, made her physically uncomfortable because, yet again, she pushed the boundaries too far. Surely Erin will ask her to leave now. Holtzmann can’t believe she made it this far only to screw it up over something so stupid, so senseless.

“Erin, I’m so – I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to - shit.”

She moves to sit up again, to get away from her mistake but Erin catches her with a gentle hand to her chin, keeping her in place.

“Holtz, don’t. I want you to touch me, just… not there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I want you,” Erin repeats with a small smile. “Please.”

Holtzmann’s not going to argue. She presses her lips to Erin’s other thigh, where she knows she can’t mess up, and kisses down, down, down to the triangle, desperate to make it up to her, to make her feel good because clearly there was a time when she didn’t. Erin comes hard, thighs clenched and a hand buried tight in Holtzmann’s hair, a string of expletives and moans falling from her lips.

Holtzmann kisses the way back up and hopes that it’s forgotten, or forgiven; she’s not sure which she’d prefer. Erin brings her hands up to Holtzmann’s cheeks, wipes the wetness from her lips with her thumbs and kisses her slow and heavy.

After what feels like hours, Erin pulls back and bumps their foreheads together, asks if Holtzmann wants to join her in the shower with an inviting smile. Holtzmann declines, still feeling a little guilty, and says she’ll shower after Erin. Her head feels light from her recent discovery and she wants time to think, distraction free. She sits back on her heels to allow Erin to get up; she presses one last kiss to her forehead and then disappears to the bathroom.

Holtzmann shifts to sit cross-legged on the bed, reaching for her glasses to mute out the colours and help her think. She tries to process the events of the last hour or so. One; Erin still likes her. Two; Erin is fun to go down on. Three; Erin once hurt herself on purpose. And maybe it was only the once but she doesn’t know how long ago and she wants to know why, but Erin doesn’t seem to want to talk about it and Holtzmann’s not that socially inept as to ask her outright.

Her high school teachers always said she had an overactive imagination. Now it’s working double speed, so fast she can barely keep up as she thinks of different scenarios as to why Erin would hurt herself. Was she bullied, perhaps? Did she have poor self-esteem? No, that couldn’t be it, Erin seemed to have bundles of self-confidence as showcased by her flirting not thirty minutes before – but maybe she wasn’t always like that. This brings her back to the question of when was Erin this unhappy. Was it a long time ago? Ten years, or fifteen? Or was it recent? Erin’s reaction to her touching the scar led her to believe that it might’ve been. So what could’ve happened? Her mind zeroes in on Erin’s confession of loneliness and if that’s the reason then Holtzmann might cry.

She’s this close to panic dialling Abby or Patty, or both, to get their advice. Should she apologise again or just leave it? Would Erin want her to ask about it? Would she appear inconsiderate if she acted like nothing happened? Would Erin-

“Holtz?” She physically jolts out of her thoughts for the second time that morning, but in her own defence there had been a lot to think about. “Shower’s free,” Erin says as she re-enters the bedroom wearing only a towel. Her hair is tied back into a ponytail and it’s dry, thank goodness. Holtzmann had been worried that if Erin had washed her hair, she might’ve expected Holtzmann to do the same, which would have meant at least a half hour spent trying to tame it again afterwards. “There’s a towel on the back of the door in the bathroom that you can use.”

Holtzmann showers quickly, using Erin’s coconut body wash, the water hot, too hot probably. It beats down hard on her shoulders, reminding her of the rain outside. She comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter why Erin hurt herself in the past, as long as she’s okay now. She hopes that’s the right conclusion to come to.

She dries herself with the towel Erin left and puts on her blue shirt and grey trousers from yesterday. She releases her hair from the bun she’d tied it up in to stop it getting wet and combs it through with her fingers, then ties it back up again.

Holtzmann checks back in the bedroom, but it’s empty so she goes on a little adventure around Erin’s apartment, searching for her. She finds her in the kitchen, stirring mugs of coffee wearing the same shorts as earlier and a new white t-shirt. Erin’s turned away from her and she hasn’t heard Holtzmann come in, so she just stands in the doorway and watches, wistful.

She wonders if this is what it’s like to date someone properly. To wake up next to them, share a kiss, take turns to shower, drink coffee together. Small moments of intimacy that might seem boring or insignificant to others are what she secretly craves. Holtzmann’s never been one for routine, but she could easily train herself to do this every morning. It’s bittersweet to think that this is what she’s been missing out on all this time. Still, she can’t help but feel like she’s falling way too fast, she likes Erin too much and that this is all going to come crashing down any second.

“Milk?”

“Yes. Please.”

She’s never been good with words. It’s so difficult to find the right ones, put them in the right order and say them in the correct tone with facial expressions to match. What she wants to say is ‘Erin, I’m sorry I touched your scar when you didn’t give me permission to. It’s none of my business why you hurt yourself; all I care about is that you’re okay now. I want you to be happy.’ But words are hard and it’d take her a week to get the nerve to say something as complex as that. It’s an emotional minefield and her tread has never been delicate.

Physical contact is so much easier; body language and touch are a more natural way to communicate – for her, anyway. So Holtzmann takes a few steps forward and wraps her arms around Erin’s waist, hugging her tight from behind. She drops her head forward, resting it on Erin’s shoulder and hopes that she understands what she can’t communicate verbally.

“Thank you,” Erin says after a while and she sounds sincere. “Sugar?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Holtzmann turns her head to press a kiss to Erin’s neck.

“Very funny,” Erin says with a small groan, turning in Holtzmann’s arms to kiss her properly. She tastes like toothpaste and smells like coconut and it doesn’t take much for Holtzmann to lose herself completely in the kiss, remembering that this time last night she’d had Erin up against her kitchen counter, too. But this time it’s more relaxed, with no endgame or finish line, like they have the whole morning to just be around each other.

“Soo, now what?” Holtzmann asks, generally unsure of what’s supposed to happen next.

Erin glances back at the window where the rain is still falling. “I was going to suggest we go out somewhere but I’m not sure I fancy it now. Are you happy to just stay here for the morning?”

“Of course,” Holtzmann agrees, slightly relieved that Erin set the limit to ‘morning’. Now she knows the boundaries, there’s some structure to the unknown. “What are we going to do?”

Erin shrugs, smiling. “Drink terrible instant coffee. Watch TV. Cuddle?”

“Cuddle and make out?”

“Hmm,” Erin hums, raising an eyebrow. “We’ll see about that.”

They drink coffee, watch TV, cuddle and make out, in that order. Holtzmann supposes this must be what people call ‘domestic bliss’. At one point Erin convinces her to take her hair down from its bun, and gasps; ‘It’s so long! And pretty! Will you let me play with it? Please!’ Holtzmann lets her, she’s not sure she could say no if she tried. She lies on the couch with her head in Erin’s lap, as Erin runs her fingers through her hair, more easily than before now she’s let it down. Every so often Erin’s nails scratch lightly against her scalp making Holtzmann’s whole body tingle and feel weightless.

“Erin?”

“Yeah?”

“I like like you.”

She feels Erin’s body shake a little as she laughs. “I like like you too, Holtz.”

Holtzmann doesn’t think she’s ever felt happier.

Notes:

on a completely personal note, I got my a-level exam results back last week and I got into my top choice university and will be studying biological sciences in september yay!!

as always please let me know your thoughts in the comments! favourite parts? least favourite parts?

Chapter 9

Notes:

next chapter! only one more to go after this.
thank you so much for your comments on the last chapter, they were so lovely :)

“Abby?”

“Holtz, why are you calling me? I only left like fifteen minutes ago.”

“You know how you said not to do anything stupid while you were out getting soup?”

A loud crash.

“What was that noise?”

 “Nothing.”

“Jillian Holtzmann! What did you do?”

“You love me, right?”

“Depends on what you’ve done.”

“On a scale of not very angry to a little angry, how would you feel if I told you that the lab kind of went… poof?”

Radio silence.

“Technically, only my part of the lab went poof. Your bit is okay. I think. I can’t really see from here.”

“Holtzmann! You’re still in there?! Get out before something else explodes!”

“Can’t. Kind of… stuck.”

“What?! Oh my God, are you hurt? Badly? Shit, I’m coming back now. Did you call an ambulance?”

“Yeah, I called the ambulance first. Are you proud of me?”

“Sure, but how badly hurt are you?

“I can’t feel my nose.”

“Is that a good thing or not?”

“Well, the rest of my body feels freaking terrible so it's hard to say. Wait… no, I can touch my nose, it’s still there. Did I tell you Erin said I have a cute nose? She’s so nice…”

“Now’s not the time, Holtz.”

There’s a small gap in the conversation. It sounds like Abby’s running.

“Hey, Abs?

“What?”

“I think we’re gonna get fired. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just make sure you’re okay. I’m going to hang up now so I can ring Patty and tell her what’s happened. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay. Love you loads.”

“I love you, too. Even if you do give me a heart attack one day.”

“Ain’t no party like a heart attack party.”

Abby hangs up the phone.

---

 Erin blinks and rubs her forehead with her fingers, trying to relieve some of the tension. She’s only been at work for a few hours, it’s just gone midnight but she already feels exhausted. There have been not one, not two but three severe cardiac arrests already, a man who’d been stabbed in the abdomen and a young child suffering from an asthma attack.

She’s been feeling a little strange since she got to work anyway, cold and shivery but she’s not ill and it’s a warm evening. Not that she has a lot of time to concentrate on that when there are people whose hearts have stopped beating.

With a sigh, she works on signing off the paperwork from her latest patient until she’s interrupted by someone calling her name.

“Doctor Gilbert?” Erin turns to see one of the emergency nurses, Jess, beckoning her over. “Someone to see you, it’s about a patient.”

“Who is it?”

“She said her name was Patty.” Erin frowns. She didn’t even know anyone called Patty. “She said it’s quite urgent.”

Erin shrugs and follows her out to one of the waiting areas. Jess points to a woman who Erin would probably describe as a giant. She almost looks like a big friendly giant made of sunshine. Except this Patty looks more like a giant made of thunder clouds and worry.  She feels the pieces of the puzzle click together in her brain. “Patty?”

Patty looks up and follows her to a more secluded area so they can talk privately.

“Erin Gilbert, right? Holtzy’s girlfriend?” Patty asks.

“Uh, we’re dating, yes,” Erin replies, slightly taken aback by the new label.

Patty seems unfazed. “Sure, okay. Listen, Holtzy was in an accident at the lab earlier this evening.”

“What?!” Erin feels her eyes grow wide in shock. “Is it really bad?”

“I don’t know about her, but Abby said the lab was in quite a state. She got taken into surgery pretty much straight away.”

“Abby?” Erin echoes, overwhelmed.

“Holtzy’s colleague. She said I should let you know what happened,” Patty explains.

“Oh.” Erin’s oddly touched by the gesture.

“Anyways, I gotta get back. Abby’s waiting for Holtz to come back out of surgery and her nerves are shredded. But it was nice to finally meet you. You’re all Holtzy talks about.” She smiles briefly and it’s like a light shining out of her face. Erin can see why Holtzmann must like her so much.

“Um, thank you. It was nice to meet you, too. Thanks for letting me know,” Erin says, grateful even though her head is spinning with terrible possibilities of what could’ve happened to Holtzmann.

“See you later, maybe.” Patty waves and leaves the waiting area.

Erin wishes she could join her, be there for when Holtzmann gets back, when she wakes up. But she can’t because she’s not even halfway through a night shift than involves actively making sure people don’t die.

The next eight hours pass agonisingly slowly. She tries to be professional, to concentrate on the patient in front of her rather than the one on her mind, but it’s difficult. By the time her shift finishes it’s gone eight o’clock in the morning and she’s desperate for any new information about Holtzmann.

She checks in with one of the nurses and finds out the ward Holtzmann is on - she’s out of surgery thank goodness, and fights the urge to run there. She approaches the private room Holtzmann’s been assigned to and the lights are dimmed, the curtain half drawn across the window. Through the gap she can see Holtzmann in the hospital bed and someone sat in the chair next to it; Abby. Erin comes to a halt, her grasp on the door handle stilling.

She’s not sure she can face Abby again, not without breaking down into tears. But she knows that her anxiety over Holtzmann is going to get the better of her eventually, so she takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. Abby glances up at the intrusion, recognises her and looks away, back to Holtzmann.

“Erin.”

It’s curt, cold.

“Abby. How is she?”

“You’re the doctor,” Abby says, offhand.

Erin tries not to roll her eyes - she just wants to know if Holtzmann is okay. She picks up the clipboard from the side of the bed and reads through the notes, fully examining Holtzmann’s injuries for the first time; broken collarbone and fingers from the force of the blast, major shrapnel wounds to the torso with minor wounds to the rest of the body. Burns, obviously, but mostly first-degree. It seemed Holtzmann had been wearing something more practical and fire-retardant than her usual ridiculously unsafe attire. So, Holtzmann had been lucky considering the explosive circumstances, but she’d still made a mess of herself.

“She’s been lucky,” Erin states simply, trying to start a conversation. She brushes a strand of charcoal tinged hair away from Holtzmann’s face and carefully traces a small graze on her forehead with her knuckle.

“I guess,” Abby shrugs, weary. She looks as exhausted as Erin feels; her hair is messy and there are dark rings under her eyes from staying awake all through the night.

“Where’s Patty?”

“Went home to sleep. She has work in the morning.” Abby pushes her glasses up and checks her watch. “Well, now probably.”

Erin nods and turns her attention back to Holtzmann. It’s odd to see her so still, the effects of the sedative still holding power over her. She looks smaller now that her large personality is contained, like she’s not truly herself.

“Does her family know?”

Abby scoffs. “Are you kidding? The last time she got hurt in a lab accident, I made the mistake of calling them and they all flew in to see Holtz. And I mean all of them. She has six siblings! It was total chaos. They’re nice people, but they can be slightly overwhelming. Holtz made me promise not to call them again unless things got really bad.”

Erin bites her lip, unsure of how to reply. “Okay.”

“You gonna sit down or are you just gonna stand there like a lemon?”

Erin sits on the other side of the room, as though the distance will lessen the awkwardness. If anything it makes it worse.

“Thank you for getting Patty to tell me what happened. I really appreciate it.”

Abby nods and says nothing, her expression blank.

They sit in silence for five whole minutes - Erin times it with her watch. The quiet is so intense that Erin feels her anxiety rise, a bout of word vomit approaching fast.

“Abby,” she starts and the brunette’s gaze is so piercing that Erin almost falters. “I know that you hate me – I lied to you and that was awful, but I really do like Holtz, I care about her. I would never mess her around, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Abby sighs heavily, reaching under her glasses to rub at her eyes. “I don’t hate you, Erin.”

“You don’t?” Erin’s so shocked she sits up straighter in her chair, suddenly alert. “Why? I lied to you for months. I left you. And I never even apologised for it.”

Saying it out loud for the first time, acknowledging what she did, makes her hurt on the inside and her throat tighten. How could Abby not hate her when she’d ruined their entire friendship?

“Yes,” Abby agrees. “I’m not going to deny you were a shit friend.” Erin winces. “But so was I.”

Erin shakes her head, fidgeting with the hem of her white coat. “No, you were right not to talk to me after what I did. Your reaction was justified. It was my fault and I know it, I accept it. I’ve lived with it for twenty years and it’s okay, I’ve come to terms with it now. ”

“Erin, just… shut up for like two minutes,” Abby says bluntly. “This is what happened: You told me you were going to study physics with me when you knew you were going to med school. That was a lie, but I believed you. You were in the wrong.”

“I fail to see how this isn’t my fault,” Erin cuts in quietly.

“Literally, two minutes,” Abby mutters to herself, exasperated. “I found out at graduation that you were actually going to med school and it was painful – for both us, I think. I chose to walk away and never speak to you again. I was in the wrong.” Erin opens her mouth to speak but Abby silences her with a glare. “Deep down, I knew your parents pushed you into med school, I knew you wanted to do physics. You were going through a difficult time and I should’ve been there for you, but I was hurt and I let my anger get the better of me. I never should have pushed you away. I’m sorry.”

Erin’s stunned. She never even thought about it that way. As far as she was concerned, she’d been the catalyst for the end of their friendship, the cause of twenty years of guilt and loneliness. She’d repressed the memory for so long, but now that she really thought about it, Abby probably could’ve handled it better than just walking away.

“I’m sorry, too.” Erin hesitates, unsure if she should talk about it anymore. “I missed you so much. I still miss you. My life kind of went to shit without you in it.”

Abby gives her a watery smile. “You swore. You never used to swear. And I missed you, too.” She lets out a strangled laugh and wipes her eyes. “We both really screwed each other over, huh?”

“We did.”

“Just answer me one question. Why did you lie?”

Erin wrings her hands together, heart racing. She’s thought about what she would say to Abby if she ever got the chance hundreds and hundreds of times. She’s practised speeches in her head. Had nightmares of Abby shouting at her, telling her she was a terrible person, the worst she’d ever known. Had dreams of them being friends again. Now the moment is here, this is her one chance. Abby is listening, willing to hear her out so she can’t mess this up.

“I was scared. I knew that when I told you I was going to med school you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore. I lied to delay the process, so you'd still like me. It was selfish, I know. But I was so scared to lose you. I didn’t want to acknowledge that we would be apart. I lied to try and protect both of our feelings, but in the end it hurt us more,” Erin trails off, voice cracking and vision blurring.

Through her tears she sees Abby nod, like she accepts what Erin’s just said. “Want to hug it out?”

“Please.”

Abby rises from her chair and Erin tries to do the same, but her legs are wobbling so Abby sort of catches her halfway, holding her tight. She still smells the same, feels the same in Erin’s grip. It’s like coming home, like she’s been put back together, the missing piece replaced.

“I forgive you.”

Erin sobs. She buries her face into Abby’s shoulder, finally breaking apart after trying to hold herself together for so long. The heavy weight of guilt that she’s carried on her shoulders for years is lifted. Not entirely, not yet, but now it’s like Abby is sharing some of the weight, helping her hold it up, relieving the suffocating pressure.

Before, she would have given anything for Abby to forgive her. Would’ve gotten down on her knees and begged. Now Abby’s given it to her willingly, freely. It’s strange that something so simple such as a hug, a few words of forgiveness and apologies can cut through years of crippling doubt and self-hatred. Those feelings will still linger of course, probably for the rest of her life, but now Erin has forgiveness, the acceptance she never thought she’d receive.

“Thank you.” It’s a whisper, but she’s not sure she can say much else.

“I think we need to sit down before you fall down,” Abby says, releasing Erin and guiding them both back to her chair. She pulls another chair next to hers so they can sit together.

Erin stumbles to the seat, landing in it with a small thump. She leans in to Abby’s shoulder, not wanting to be physically apart now that she’s got her back. Abby pulls her closer, wrapping her arms around Erin’s waist.

“Just so you know, this isn’t a full pardon. I’m still mildly pissed at you.”

“I can live with that,” Erin concedes.

“If you hurt Holtz I’ll still murder you.”

Erin laughs through her tears. “Sounds fair.”

“She really likes you, Erin. Talks about you all the time, I can’t get her to shut up. She’s like an excitable puppy, it’s exhausting. Yesterday, she spent half an hour telling me how beautiful you are, like she hasn’t already shown me the picture of the two of you about twenty times.”

Erin smiles so wide her cheeks hurt. “Really?”

“Really. She keeps asking me for advice. I’m not sure she knows how to date people.”

“I know.”

“She told you?” Abby sounds surprised. “Did she stutter?”

"Only at the start.”

“That’s new,” Abby says, glancing over at Holtzmann. “She’s not particularly good at navigating social situations, especially with people she has a romantic interest in. If she gets something wrong don’t judge her for it.”

“I won’t,” Erin promises.

“I know, but just… go easy on her. Holtz may not have much of a brain-to-mouth filter, but her heart’s in the right place.”

Erin nods, but whenever she’d been around Holtzmann, some kind of a filter had seemed to be in place. Maybe Holtzmann had just been trying really hard not to put her off. That possibility makes her heart twinge.

“She tells you everything?”

Abby chuckles. “I think she takes the concept of ‘best friends tell each other everything’ a little bit too literally. She went into far too much detail about your date on Saturday night.”

She frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Inappropriate details, Erin.”

Erin flushes, face heating up. “Oh.”

“It was very complimentary,” Abby reassures her. 

A croak from the bed turns both of their heads.

“Holtz?” Abby jumps up and rushes over. Erin stays sitting, waiting in the shadows. Abby was Holtzmann’s best friend and emergency contact after all, not her. “Don’t try and sit up! Stay still, that’s it. How are you feeling?”

Holtzmann groans loudly. “Hmm. Pretty… terrible.”

“Here drink this.” Abby holds a cup of water up to Holtzmann’s mouth so she can drink. “Okay?”

“Sorry I blew up the lab,” Holtzmann says, voice hoarse. “What’s the damage?”

“You bust your collarbone up pretty bad, and your fingers. Got a few scraps of metal jammed in your ribs, too. Missed your internal organs though.”

“I meant the lab.”

“I know you meant the bloody lab!” Abby yells. “The lab doesn’t matter! You matter, Holtz.”

“Abs have you… been crying? Your eyes are red.” There’s confusion in Holtzmann’s slow speech. She starts to cough, wheezing slightly. Abby hands her the drink again and takes her hand gently, calming her. “Why is it so hard to speak?”

“You inhaled a nice combination of chemicals and a load of smoke, too,” Abby explains.

Erin doesn’t hear Holtzmann respond for a while, and guesses that she’s fallen asleep but she speaks again. “Is Patty here?”

“She had to go home for work, but she waited with me as long as she could. She said she’ll come back tomorrow and see you.” Abby pauses, glancing to where Erin’s still sat in the chair. “Erin’s here, though.”

“Really? Right now?”

Erin takes this as her signal to move forward, approaching the bed on the opposite side to Abby. “Hey Holtz.”

Holtzmann visibly brightens at the sight of her. “Doctor Gilbert, looking hot as always.”

Erin chuckles at her use of formal address and blatant flirting. Holtzmann reaches out with her other  bandage-covered hand and Erin takes it gladly, careful not to squeeze too tight. If Erin was into philosophical meanings, she’d say it was significant – Holtzmann holding both her and Abby’s hand at the same time, physically joining them back together.

“Thank you.” She’s not talking about the compliment.

Holtzmann frowns, tilting her head on the pillow, looking between Abby and Erin. “Have you been crying, too? Should I be crying?”

“No, no everything’s okay,” Erin smiles reassuringly. “You just gave us a fright.”

Holtzmann grins, white teeth contrasting against the layer of soot on her face. “I am pretty terrifying.”

“You mean your ideas are pretty terrifying,” Abby cuts in. She glances at Erin, looking awkward and feeling somewhat of a third wheel. “I think I saw a vending machine in one of the hallways with some Pringles. I’ll go get you some,” she excuses herself and starts to leave.

“Abs, can you get-“

“The green Pringles, yes I know.” Abby rolls her eyes and leaves the room. Erin’s grateful for the privacy.

“Those are your favourites,” she says simply, recalling their conversation from a few days ago.

“You remembered.”

“Of course.”

Holtzmann grins and shifts in the bed, trying to sit up more and yelping in pain from the movement. “Damn, that hurts. I think you need to kiss me better, Doctor.”

Erin looks down at her white coat and wonders how inappropriate it would look if someone walked past and saw her kissing a patient. She leans down and presses a light kiss to Holtzmann’s grazed cheek. “Better?”

“I guess it will do for now,” Holtzmann says sleepily, eyes half-closed.

“I think you need to get some rest, Holtz.”

“Hmm… no,” Holtzmann groans, eyes opening again. “Sleep is for losers. Help me sit up please?”

Erin shuffles the pillows around behind Holtzmann’s head, propping her up into a more upright position. “Okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” Holtzmann chews on her bottom lip for a moment. “I had something… I had something for you. But I can’t remember where…” she trails off, staring at the bed for inspiration.

Erin gives her hand a small squeeze. “Don’t worry. It can wait.”

“No, no I want to give it,” Holtzmann says stubbornly. She stares off into space again for a few moments. Erin’s not sure if she’s concentrating or it’s the effect of the anaesthetic. “My jacket! Is it here?”

Erin looks around the room for it, and spots a green jacket folded on one of the chairs. “Want me to get it?”

“Please. I have something. For you,” Holtzmann repeats, smiling. Erin hands her the jacket, and Holtzmann tries to reach in the pockets but the bandages hold her back. She thrusts the jacket to Erin in frustration. “Can you get it?”

“I’m not really sure what I’m looking for,” Erin says, cautiously feeling around in the pockets, afraid she’ll come across something horrible. Her fingers brush other something cold and smooth. “Is it metal?”

Holtzmann nods. “I hope you like it.”

Erin pulls the item out of Holtzmann’s pocket and turns it over. It’s a small piece of metal, no bigger than a coin, cut into the shape of an atom. The surface of the metal is coloured purple, a light lilac shade.

“It’s two of the things you like; physics and purple. I know the shape of the atom isn’t scientifically accurate. And I was going to put a chain on it so you could wear it as a necklace,” Holtzmann trails off, looking nervous. “You don’t like it. It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“No Holtz, I love it. It’s perfect. Thank you for making this for me,” Erin says, genuinely touched by the thought Holtzmann has put into the gift.

“I made it from the piece of metal you pulled out of my arm when we first met,” Holtzmann explains. “You were going to throw it away, but I kept it, remember?”

“I remember,” Erin says quietly, running her fingers over the metal again. She finds it strange but endearing that Holtzmann would choose to keep something like that for sentimental value. It feels like a lifetime ago that Holtzmann first walked in to the emergency department looking not dissimilar to how she looks now; face covered in soot, hair burned and body littered with cuts and bruises. “Thank you, Holtzmann. I wish I had something to give you, too.”

“How about a third date?” Holtzmann suggests, hopeful.

Erin chuckles. “I think you can have as many dates as you want.”

Holtzmann looks surprised, if not pleased. “Unlimited dates,” she muses, obviously pleased with the concept. She sits back and grins for a little while, eyes unfocused. “Wow, Abby is taking a long time with those Pringles, huh?”

Erin laughs but Holtzmann just looks confused. “Oh, I think she just said that to give us some privacy.”

“Right,” Holtzmann says, looking vaguely as though she understands. “Wait, so is she actually getting Pringles or not?”

“She is.”

A light tap on the door signals Abby’s return.

“Why did you knock?” Holtzmann asks as Abby enters the room again.

“Didn’t want to interrupt any… smooching,” Abby says carefully, throwing Holtzmann’s Pringles to her.

“Oh, there wasn’t any smooching,” Holtzmann says conclusively. She sets about pulling the lid off of the Pringles tube with her teeth.

Abby smiles at her behaviour, then turns to Erin. “Everything okay?”

Erin nods. She looks at Holtzmann and then at Abby. Sure, things between them were still awkward and uncertain, and it might continue to be that way for a long time, but she has her best friend back in her life, on civilised speaking terms.

“Jackpot!” Holtzmann spits the lid onto the floor and tips Pringles straight from the tube into her mouth. Abby shakes her head in disbelief.

And now she has Holtzmann, too; kind-hearted, irrefutably gorgeous, undeniably dangerous and a little socially inept. Erin doesn’t want her to go anywhere anytime soon.

It’s not perfect, far from it. But it’s definitely okay. The best it’s been in a long, long time.

“Everything’s okay.”

Notes:

yay for Erin and Abby reunion and some Holtzbert at the end :)
favourite parts? least favourite parts? general thoughts? let me know in the comments! x

Chapter 10

Notes:

I lied!! there will be one more after this but it's more of an epilogue, so I wanted to post it separately, should be up within 2 days.
thanks for all the comments on the last chapter! I hope you enjoy this one, should be a fun one :)

If there was one thing Erin absolutely detested, it was waking up early. Following her visit to see Holtzmann last night, she’d promised to come back and see her again soon, but hadn’t really thought the logistics of it through. The only possible solution to seeing Holtzmann again at a reasonable hour was to go to work early and see her before her shift started at around ten o’clock at night.

She still feels emotionally exhausted after her talk with Abby last night but physically she feels almost lighter, like a new person now that the guilt has been lifted. Erin stifles a yawn as she approaches Holtzmann’s hospital room, entering quickly to hide from other members of staff that might try to get her to work now.

“Erin!” Holtzmann shouts, grinning. She points to Patty who’s sitting in the seat next to the bed. “Join the party!”

“This is not a party, Holtzy,” Patty says firmly. She nods in Erin’s direction, looking relieved that someone else if here to help her handle Holtzmann’s antics. The blonde is wide awake now compared to this morning, looking very energetic having spent the whole day in her bed, reluctantly, Erin guesses.

Holtzmann’s wearing clean clothes and the dark soot that covered her face and upper body last night is gone. The heavy bandages on her fingers have been replaced by tape to hold them in place and her left arm is in a sling due to her broken collarbone. Erin can’t imagine Holtzmann will be pleased when she finds out it’ll take at least ten weeks to heal properly.

“Where’s Abby?”

“Went home to get some rest. She’ll be in soon, though,” Holtzmann explains. She looks slightly manic, as though the pent up energy is fighting to get out of her body.

“Not soon enough,” Patty grumbles. She pats the seat next to her and Erin sits.

“Erin is that a thermometer in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?”

“Holtzy!” Patty yells, giving her a small slap on the leg. “Cut that out! You’re gonna get yourself done for sexual harassment.”

“It’s not harassment but it’s definitely sexual,” Holtzmann says proudly. “We’re dating. Unlimited dates.”

“I know! You told me that like a hundred times since I’ve been here! Besides it’s still harassment if it’s in a workplace.” Patty gestures to their general surroundings. Erin’s not sure if that’s true but it gets Holtzmann to be quiet for a moment, which was probably Patty’s intention.

“Erin’s going to dress up in her sexy doctor uniform in the bedroom for me,” Holtzmann declares, still beaming. Patty groans, exasperated.

Erin feels her cheeks flush. “I’m not sure I agreed to that, Holtz.”

Holtzmann shrugs her uninjured shoulder. “I could persuade you. But no sexy times for a while,” she says sadly, holding up her bandaged fingers. “I did ask the doctor, and they said to avoid it until the bones heal.”

“You asked the doctor?” Erin squeaks.

“I was there,” Patty confirms, unhappily.

“I suppose I don’t have to use my hands, though,” Holtzmann continues, and winks. Erin didn’t know it was medically possible to die of embarrassment. Patty gives her a sympathetic look.

“She’s on a lot of pain medication right now,” Patty mutters, feeling the need to excuse her friend’s behaviour.

“Am not,” Holtzmann scoffs, indignant. “If I’m taking lots of pain medication, why am I in so much pain?”

Patty rolls her eyes. “I don’t know Holtzy, maybe because you blew up the lab! With yourself in it! I don’t think they have lab-explosion level pain relief yet.”

Holtzmann doesn’t appear to acknowledge anything Patty’s just said.

“Eriiin,” she whines and pouts. “My everything hurts. They haven’t given me any medicine.”

Erin gets up and presses the back of her hand to Holtzmann’s forehead. “You are quite feverish.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Patty warns, as though she’s been through this before. "Don't let those puppy dog eyes fool you."

Erin takes Patty’s advice into account but still asks, “Want me to go and get one of the nurses?”

“No!” Holtzmann says suddenly, pulling a scared face but her eyes are sparkling. She grabs onto Erin’s hand and holds tight. “Don’t go, Erin! I need you here! What if they chop off the wrong limb?”

“What?” Erin and Patty both say in unison, equally confused. Erin takes the opportunity to pull her hand away and sit back down, seeing as Holtzmann appeared to be exaggerating her symptoms. 

“They put needles in me and you weren’t here to hold my hand!” Holtzmann continues.

“I’ve been here!” Patty says defensively. “Looking after your whiny ass.”

“You gave me grapes!” Holtzmann retorts, pushing away the bag of fruit on the bed in disgust. “I hate grapes and you know it!”

“Grapes are good for you!”

“Well, I can’t even eat them. Look at my hands!” Holtzmann waves her lightly bandaged fingers in the air and paws at the grapes for added effect. “Might as well have given me noodles and chopsticks. I asked you nicely to get me more Pringles.”

“Pringles are not nutritious. No wonder you’re so short if that’s all you eat.”

“I’m not short! You’re just really tall,” Holtzmann says grumpily.

Patty raises an eyebrow. Holtzmann doesn’t say anything else. Erin’s almost disappointed that they’ve stopped.

“You own any Prince albums?” Patty asks, making the most of the brief interlude.

Erin nods. “Purple Rain.”

Patty looks impressed. “Keep her Holtzy.”

“Didn’t intend on letting her go,” Holtzmann grins and Erin matches it. “But I appreciate your seal of approval, Pattycakes.”

Erin appreciates it, too. She's never really had a partner's friends' approval before, especially not this fast.

“Never call me that again.”

The sound of the door opening turns all of their heads to Abby entering the room carrying a video camera. Erin sits up straighter in her chair, slightly nervous despite them making up last night.

“Abby! Join the party!” Holtzmann says again.

“Thank god you’re back,” Patty stage whispers.

“Hi,” Erin says quietly, testing the waters.

Abby gives her a brief smile and Erin relaxes. Holtzmann, in her highly alert state, doesn’t miss it.

“Wait a minute,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Do you guys… know each other?”

“We used to go to school together,” Abby says quickly, not keen on revealing anything else which Erin is grateful for.

Holtzmann’s mouth drops open. “What?! No way! That’s so cool. And look, all my favourite people are in the same room. This is the best day of my life,” she says happily, doing a little jiggle and then grimacing in pain from the movement.

“That’s great Holtz, but I have some bad news. Looks like we’re getting fired,” Abby says bluntly, downcast.

“Oh shit,” Holtzmann breathes, eyes comically wide. Erin might have laughed at the sight had the situation been different. “I’m so sorry, Abby.”

Abby shrugs it off, but she seems upset. “It’s okay. Gorin’s at the school trying to sort it out, but it’s not looking good. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

Holtzmann nods silently, unconvinced.

Patty shivers and rubs her arms. “Man, is it cold in here or is it just me?”

“It’s cold in here,” Erin agrees, a chill settling at the base of her spine.

“I’m not cold, I have a blanket,” Holtzmann pipes up.

“Who asked you?” Patty grumbles.

“You did just now,” Holtzmann says smugly. “What’s the camera for, Abs? Sex tape?”

“Wow Holtz, how did you guess? No, I need you to film a message of yourself saying you’re okay and send it to your family so they don’t fly all the way out here again,” Abby explains, handing the camera to Holtzmann who fumbles it with her bandaged hands.

“We definitely don’t want that,” Holtzmann agrees. She presses the power button of the camera with her nose and instantly turns the lens to Patty. “Say hi to my family, Pattycakes.”

Patty gives her a death glare and remains silent. Holtzmann turns the camera onto Erin, who blushes and tries to push the camera away.

“Holtz! Really?”

“I agree it is a little soon for you to meet my parents,” Holtzmann muses, undeterred all the same. “But they are very friendly. Stay still, Erin! I’ll try and zoom in on your cute little nose.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Erin frowns, pushing the camera away again.

Holtzmann turns it on herself and tries to do a thumbs-up signal, despite her bandages. She points the camera to her sling and pulls a face, then shivers and frowns. “Now I’m cold, too. Even with my blanket.”

“Ah!” Abby says suddenly. “My ears just popped!”

"And mine," Patty says, suspicious.

“Mine too!” Holtzmann shouts, not wanting to be left out.

“An AP-xH shift!” Erin says and jumps out of her seat, excited.

Patty looks confused and stays sitting. “A what now?”

Abby shoots Erin a knowing look. “When your ears pop. It’s a sign you’re in the presence of a ghost!”

“A ghost?!” Patty shrieks. “Hell no, I’m out of here!” She starts to run for the door but stops in her tracks.

“Guys, look!” Holtzmann calls, pointing to the door which is now glowing.

Erin actually pinches herself. “This can’t be happening.”

“It better not be!” Patty yells, running to Holtzmann’s side and hiding next to her.

“Hey Pats,” Holtzmann says calmly. “Want a grape?”

“Holtz! Camera please. I want to record this,” Abby says, backing up to create more distance between herself and the blue glowing door. Erin does the same, heart pounding so hard she’s sure the others can hear it. Abby points the camera at the door, steadying herself.

The door opens and Erin’s stomach does a somersault. Floating in the doorway is a full-blown, real life ghost, glowing blue and green. The ghost is dressed like a nurse, but the retro white uniform is spattered with blood and ripped in several places and her eyes are red.

“It’s a class four apparition. Distinct human form,” Erin whispers.

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Abby whispers back. She spots Erin moving forward and raises an arm up to try and stop her. “Be careful! Could be malevolent.”

“Malevolent?!” Patty shrieks again.

“Be careful, Erin!” Holtzmann calls from behind her. “Unlimited dates, remember?”

“I’m just going to try and talk to it. She seems peaceful.” Erin takes another step forward, now less than a meter away from the ghost. She takes a deep breath, hands shaking. “Um, hi. Hello. My name is Doctor Erin Gilbert, I work here at the Hudson Valley Hosp-“

The ghost roars, tilts its head back and projects what Erin could only describe as slime all over her. It’s cold and sticky and heavy, slipping underneath her clothes and sliding all the way down her body. The slime covers her eyes so she can’t even see, only able to hear the commotion that takes place afterwards.

“She’s getting away!”

“Good!”

A loud crash as what sounds like a chair overturns. Another thud.

“Get it!”

The door slams.

“And stay out, bitch!”

Erin feels a hand scoop the green goo out of her eyes so she can see again. Abby’s standing in front of her, grinning. Patty’s leaning heavily against the shut door, panting. Holtzmann doesn’t appear to have moved an inch during the entire experience.

Erin spits slime out of her mouth and turns to Abby. “What just happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened – we saw a ghost!” She yells, ecstatically waving the camera around.

“A ghost!” Holtzmann repeats. “And it slimed Erin! You still look hot though.”

“Ghosts are real!” Patty shouts, unable to decide whether this was a good thing or not.

“I believe in ghosts because I just saw one!” Erin shouts back, unable to believe what had just happened. After all this time, all those years of self-doubt and bullying and being labelled crazy, now she knows for sure. Ghosts are real.

“And it slimed you!” Holtzmann chimes in again.

“Holtzy, why are your grapes on the floor?” Patty asks, pointing to the bag of fruit.

“I threw them at the ghost for sliming Erin,” she explains, looking pleased with her contribution. “Was kinda hard with my broken collarbone.”

“That’s very kind of you Holtz,” Erin says, appreciative of her defensive nature. She continues to wipe the slime off her face with little effect.

“Erin do you know what this means?” Abby asks, eyes wide. “We were right! All of our theories! The book we planned to write! With this,” she holds up the camera, "we could finish it. Do our own research. Get decent funding. Who cares that me and Holtzmann just got fired! We could set up our own lab! We wouldn’t have much money to buy new equipment but-”

“We could steal it from our old lab,” Holtzmann cuts in. “Sure, it might be a little banged up, but I could fix it.”

Abby nods eagerly. “Exactly! You could join us Erin. We could really do this!”

Patty clears her throat. “Not to be dramatic, but I’m feeling pretty left out at this point.”

“Patty can come too!” Holtzmann says immediately. “She knows everything about New York. She can take us to all the most haunted places and we can look for ghosts to study. You can be our Historical Advisor, Pats.”

“I better not get slimed though,” Patty warns, but she looks pleased with her new role.

“Guys, I can’t just quit my job and come ghost hunting with you,” Erin points out, trying not to get carried away despite her growing excitement.

“You could do it part-time to start with and when we get funding you can join us full-time. Please, Erin. This is what we always wanted to do, since we were kids.” Abby seems desperate.

Erin knows this is her one and only chance to finally get the career her and Abby dreamed of. Still, she’s hesitant, there’s still that small, niggling voice in the back of her mind that tells her to literally give up the ghost and lead a normal life, the life her parents want her to have. She silences the voice instantly. 

“I guess… that could work,” she says slowly, a smile starting to form on her lips. “But you’d still need to find somewhere for your lab. And we’d probably need a receptionist or something.”

Kevin walks through the door. Erin thinks it must be fate.

“Hi boss,” he says with his usual goofy grin. “I have a message for you from toxic economy.”

Abby frowns and mutters, “Toxic economy?”

“Toxicology,” Erin clarifies.

Kevin doesn’t hear her. “Why are you covered in goo?”

“There was a ghost and it vomited on Erin,” Holtzmann answers for her.

Kevin shrugs, nonplussed. “Cool. Hey, Holtzmann. You want to be in my Hide and Seek team again? We really missed you in the last round.”

Erin stares. Holtzmann was in Kevin’s Hide and Seek team? Since when? Was this even real life? She pinches herself again.

“No can do Kev, injured myself,” Holtzmann says, pointing to her shoulder.

“Ah, well. I’m sure I can find someone else.” He turns to Abby. “Science doctor, want to be on my team?”

Abby looks confused by every single thing Kevin has said so far. “I think I’ll pass.”

He shrugs and turns to Patty. “We don’t know each other, but you can join if you want.”

Patty nods. “I’ll think about it.”

“Hey, Kev,” Erin starts. “Want a new job?”

Kevin beams. “Sure! Doing what?”

“What you do now,” Erin explains.

“But more fun,” Holtzmann adds on. “And I’ll be there.”

Kevin claps his hands together and then gives a thumbs up. “Sounds great! When do we start?”

Notes:

yay!! we have ghostbusters liftoff :)
favourite parts? least favourite parts? let me know in the comments!
thank you so much everyone who has read this far, almost at the finish line now :)

Chapter 11

Notes:

thank you everyone who has read to the end!
this is a little short, but it's an epilogue of sorts and I hope you enjoy it! :)

If Erin really thought about it, she’d never even wanted to be a doctor. She’d always wanted to be a scientist, it was her first dream job. Later, she’d narrowed it down to Physicist, then Particle Physicist. Then she’d gone to Medical School. And now she was a Paranormal Researcher, a Metaphysical Examiner, or a Ghostbuster as the media had quickly named them.

A few weeks after their encounter with the ghost at the hospital, the video footage had somehow made it onto the internet, with Erin blatantly named in the description along with her workplace. She’d been fired the next day, the hospital chief of staff saying that it wasn’t appropriate for medical professionals to scream about ghosts on the internet. Erin suspects that the posting of the video wasn’t really an accident and she has a few ideas about the culprit, too.

For the first month, it had been a struggle; Erin, Abby and Holtzmann cramped up on one floor above a Chinese restaurant, with Patty stopping by after work to help. The days were slow, not many calls came in at all – one every few days if they were lucky, and even then it was usually a prank call. Kevin had almost gone out of his mind with boredom.

All of a sudden the calls had spiked, they started getting one a day, with hysterical screaming about terrifying apparitions in a mansion, subway station and music hall. Not long after that they’d saved the city. Got government funding. Moved into the firehouse. Erin started taking night classes in Physics to try and get to Abby’s level, and Patty had done the same for her History course, giving the two time to bond seeing as they knew each other the least. Now the four of them, plus Kevin, were the official Ghostbusters. Holtzmann somehow managed to get the name trademarked.

They’re all sat out on the roof of the firehouse, minus Abby who’s gone back downstairs to fetch more snacks and Kevin, who declined the offer to participate in his next Hide and Seek tournament. It’s a celebration of the one year anniversary of them saving the city; Patty’s fired up the barbeque which Holtzmann is trying, and failing, to take over.

Erin watches them fondly from her chair and sips her drink, the bickering back and forth an essential and highly entertaining part of Patty and Holtzmann’s friendship. Holtzmann tries to wrangle the tongs out of Patty’s grip, but Patty holds her off with a single hand to Holtzmann’s forehead. Erin bites her lip to hold back a laugh at the sight of them. Holtzmann reluctantly gives up trying to take control of the grill and comes back over to Erin, landing with a thump in her lap. Erin groans at the sudden weight, shifting into a more comfortable position.

“Hey,” Holtzmann says and winks, wrapping an arm around Erin’s shoulders.

“Hey yourself,” Erin smiles, constantly amazed by Holtzmann’s lack of physical boundaries. “Patty not letting you cook?”

“Nope,” Holtzmann pouts, fiddling with the metal atom charm around Erin’s neck. Shortly after Holtzmann had been discharged from the hospital she’d attached a chain to the pendant, turning it into a necklace just as she’d promised. “She said I’d give us all food poisoning.”

“It’s not personal, Holtzy,” Patty calls over without looking up.

“Feels like it,” Holtzmann mumbles, acting hurt. She takes the bottle from Erin, wipes the top with her sleeve and takes a gulp.

“Why’d you do that?” Erin asks, slightly offended.

“It had your slobber on it,” Holtzmann says, as if that was obvious.

“Holtz, you make a conscious effort to put your tongue in my mouth on a daily basis,” Erin points out.

“Way too much information,” Abby comments, coming back through the door to the rooftop with a bag of potato chips.

Holtzmann smiles into Erin’s neck. “Happy one year of saving the city.”

“Happy one year and forty-two days of being my girlfriend,” Erin replies, to which Holtzmann snuggles in closer.

“Aw, you counted. That’s cute but you’re a nerd,” Holtzmann teases, like she doesn’t have an app on her phone that says ‘407 days and counting since I seduced Erin’.

For their one year anniversary, she’d finally convinced Erin to dress up in her ‘sexy doctor uniform’, saying that the sight of it ‘did things to her.’ Erin wasn’t particularly sure she understood which aspect of a white lab coat and jeans, not even tight-fitting ones at that, was so much of a turn on but Holtzmann had definitely enjoyed the experience.

“You’re a nerd.”

Holtzmann smirks at her response. She glances over at Abby and Patty who are engaged in a conversation about the best place to get a burger in the city.

“Quick! Kiss me while they’re distracted,” Holtzmann whispers in a tone that sounds like they’re about to take down the government.

Erin does. Even after a year, each kiss feels different, tastes different, the meaning behind it is different. This kiss feels slightly rushed, is a little rough and tastes like the drink they’re both sharing. Patty clears her throat and they pull apart.

“I thought we had an agreement there was to be no workplace smooching,” Patty reminds them with a clap of the metal tongs in their general direction.

“I’m not sure we ever agreed to that rule,” Holtzmann points out, gesturing to herself and Erin.

Abby gives her a warning glare. Patty’s grip on the tongs visibly tightens.

Holtzmann sighs, defeated. “Okay, fine. I guess I’ll just have to do this instead.”

“Holtzmann, no!” Abby yells, but it’s too late.

Holtzmann licks a stripe up the side of Erin’s face, from chin to eyebrow. Erin physically cringes and tries to push her away. Abby throws a chip at Holtzmann’s head.

Patty doesn’t look the least bit surprised, but still disgusted. "You're an animal, Holtzy."

“That was super gross,” Erin admits, wiping her cheek with her sleeve. “I love you, but that was gross.”

"Aw, you love me," Holtzmann sings, ignoring the insult. "So sweet, Erin."

Abby sits down in the chair next to them, keen to keep an eye on Holtzmann's shenanigans. "How's the upgrade to the proton pack coming along, Holtz?"

Holtzmann shrugs and rests her head back on Erin's shoulder. "Here and there," she says cryptically. Erin rolls her eyes.

"Don't trust a word that girl says," Patty cuts in, waving the tongs accusingly at Holtzmann. "She told me she was 'upgrading' my ghost chipper. Put a goddamn air horn in it! Scared the shit out of me."

“Scared the ghost, too,” Holtzmann reminds her, laughing. “It was pretty funny.”

"Hilarious,” Abby deadpans. “You better not do that to any of my equipment.”

“Or mine,” Erin adds on, poking Holtzmann in the ribs to emphasise her point. Holtzmann tended to use her as the guinea pig for testing new technology, which while thoughtful was also slightly terrifying.

“Suure,” Holtzmann agrees with a guilty look. “Nobody use their proton pack for the next twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t want to know,” Abby says firmly, holding up her hand like a stop signal.

“Happy one year of saving the city!” Holtzmann says again, eager to change the subject.

“Amen,” Patty cheers, raising her glass in the air. Erin and Abby do the same. Holtzmann holds an imaginary glass seeing as she can’t steal Erin’s drink.

“Go Ghostbusters!” Abby declares. “And Kevin, wherever he may be.”

Everyone goes silent again. Erin fidgets nervously. “Actually, I wanted to say something. About… all of us.”

Abby woops. “Speech!”

“Go Erin!” Holtzmann says excitedly, jumping off Erin’s lap into an empty chair to get a better view. Patty removes herself from the barbeque and takes a seat, drink in hand. “Come on, it can’t be any worse than mine last year.”

Erin chuckles, suddenly reminded of Holtzmann’s stilted yet heartfelt speech in the bar. It had taken Holtzmann over an hour to write – Erin knew, because she’d helped. This certainly hasn’t been planned and Erin’s starting to wish she’d never said anything, but if she doesn’t she knows she’ll regret it.

“I just wanted to say thank you – to all of you. For being my fellow Ghostbusters and my friends. I feel very privileged, and lucky, to know you and be able to work with you every day,” Erin says, sincere. She reaches for the metal charm around her neck and feels the familiar cold surface under her fingertips.

“Abby, thank you for forgiving me, and for letting me be your friend again. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to tell you how grateful I am for that. Patty, thank you being so accepting and kind to me since the start. Your knowledge of New York and love for Prince amazes me every single day. Thank you for being our big friendly giant made of sunshine.”

Abby laughs and Patty shakes her head, smiling. “I had hoped that nickname wouldn’t catch on, but I have to say I like it now.”

“I’m especially thankful to Holtzmann because if you hadn’t walked into the hospital that day, we wouldn’t have met and this,” she gestures to the firehouse, “would never have happened. I would still be working in that hospital and I would still be, uh, miserable. And lonely, too. So, thank you for blowing yourself up. Multiple times.”

Holtzmann grins. “You’re so welcome.”

“And I love you. All of you. End of speech,” Erin trails off, but her throat is tight and her voice cracks halfway through. Before she knows it, she’s been descended on by the other three in a painfully tight group hug that squeezes all the air out of her body.

In the end, it had been pure dumb luck that Holtzmann had walked into the hospital that night. It had been luck that Erin was the doctor who had treated her. If she hadn’t met Holtzmann, she wouldn’t have met Abby again. She wouldn’t have met Patty. The Ghostbusters never would’ve been formed. They wouldn’t be sat out on a firehouse roof around a barbeque.

She’s glad that Holtzmann kept that piece of metal she pulled out of her arm. It served as a reminder as to why all of this suddenly became possible. Thanks to that piece of metal, and multiple others but who was counting, she’d got one friend back, made another and gained a girlfriend.

Sure, it had been luck. Erin thought that maybe she deserved some after everything. All of the pain, the bullying, the haunting, of being a ‘ghost girl’, and the guilt and loneliness that had made up so much of her adult life.

“Love you, too,” someone says and it’s muffled, but she thinks it might be Abby.

Patty squeezes her tighter. Holtzmann presses a kiss to her cheek.

She’d go through it all again for this.

Notes:

The End!
I started writing this fic purely as stress relief during my final exams and now it's ending and I'm going to university next week! it's crazy, my dudes :)
I will miss writing the characters in this universe, but I would love to write more holtzbert in the future :)
sharing this fic with you guys has been so fun, all of your comments have been so lovely and supportive.
thank you to everyone who read, left kudos and commented! It means a lot to me :)
As always let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Adios! x