Author's Note: First TGW fic! I wrote this a long time ago but I couldn't find a good ending to it. I'm still not completly satisfied but here it is! Please, comment!

The knock on the door made him stop dead on his tracks. On a day like this you feared whoever knocked on your door in the middle of the night. Hell was breaking loose, and Cary was a smart enough man to know that this was just the beginning.

Looking through the peephole he could not help but smile sadly and at the same time feel relief at the person that stood on the other side. It really was just beginning… and he was standing right in the middle of the storm.

He opened the door.

"Kalinda…" he acknowledged her, whispering her name in that tone that made her knees go weak.

"Cary…" her voice cracked a little and he could see her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"You told her?" he felt for her, he really did. He didn't even care if she had put in a good word for him to stay in the State's Attorney's Office. It didn't matter anymore. All he cared about right now was her. Kalinda. Nobody else.

"No… she found out." The sadness in her voice was pulling at his heartstrings.

His eyes narrowed in curiosity and he stood aside to let her inside his apartment. He could see how her eyes scanned his living room as if in one of her investigations.

"From who?"

She turned around to face him, standing in the middle of his living room. Strangely it felt like none of this was real, like he was dreaming she was in his apartment. If it had been any other day, he would have already made some smart remark about her visiting him in the midnight hours. But not today, when he could see her trembling ever so slightly, breaking right in front of his eyes.

"Andrew Wiley…" she told him with no accusation in her voice.

He exhaled defeated. In some way or another, he felt like this was all his fault.

She must have noticed the guilt landing heavily on his shoulders. "I don't blame you…"

They looked deeply into each others eyes, standing a few feet apart.

"I can't…" she continued, "I can't blame you." when you've been the only one trying to help me through all of this, but that went without saying.

He walked closer to her and caressed her face as if the gesture was routine between the two of them. She closed her eyes leaning into his warm and gentle touch.

"Then what are you doing here, Kalinda?" he enquired, suddenly feeling like she was there to ask something of him, again. And knowing himself so well he knew he wouldn't have the will-power to say no. "It's not like I can help you anymore… by this time tomorrow I bet I'll be unemployed and…"

"I came to say goodbye." She interrupted him.

He faced her, startled by the revelation. "What? No…" his voice sounded like too much of a plead but he wasn't about to mask his feelings when he felt her sleeping away through his fingers.

She put some distance between them, turning her back to him and facing the big window in front of her. The city lights dimly illuminated the room, making the atmosphere even more mysterious and tense.

"There's nothing left for me in Chicago…"

"Is that so?" he walked past her, turning to face her, saying the words both skeptically and hurt.

She said nothing.

"If you have nothing, then why the hell did you come here for?" he was beginning to feel his skin burn from the rage that was building up inside. "And don't give me more of that crap about being normal, Kalinda. You are too far from that."

She inhaled deeply, and felt her heart pump in her ears.

"I know what you want to hear, Cary, but I'm not going to say it, even though some of it might be true…"

He was caught off guard. Did she really know what he felt? Did she feel it too?

She closed the distance between them, planting a meaningful kiss on the corner of his lips, a ghost of a kiss that never was. She smiled tenderly at him.

"I will miss you."

And with those words she left him, wondering if he'll ever cross paths with Kalinda Sharma again.

The end.