TITLE: There Where the Clouds Live
GENRE: Drama/angst
CHARACTERS: Cal, Gillian
PAIRING: Cal/Gillian
RATING: R
SPOILERS: None
WORDS: 950
SUMMARY: A cloud atlas of their relationship (or how it all went wrong).
[ out of control; out of order]
/ Cumulonimbus
"There's no money to buy you out," she said desperately, but he knew it wasn't the money that was on her mind. Just one last straw.
"Don't worry, it's all yours."
The thunder finally came crashing down in the dense air of it all.
/ Cirrus
From time to time he's met someone that reminded him of her. Maybe with a similar hairstyle or a vague resemblance of the feathery air she carried around herself so majestically. Then he would smile, sometimes flirt, and in the end make clear that he wasn't available.
One of these women once told him that a wife wouldn't be a problem and he smiled even more. No, he said, a wife wasn't his problem, either.
/ Wall Cloud
He watched them from the sanctuary of his office. High up, above it all, silently raging. Something was coming, he knew that, but right now he couldn't say what it was. And where exactly it would take them—him and Gillian, that was.
But despite remaining by the window, looking down onto the street where their cab just took off to a probably lovely restaurant, he felt like he couldn't stay in this place.
The question just was, whether any other place would make it any better.
/ Stratus
She still called every now and then—his birthday, the holidays, when she had a specific question about the Group—and he still answered, but he never called her himself.
He knew that one of these calls would be her telling him she'll be getting married. Informing him rather than inviting, because they both knew he wouldn't come. It's why he considered changing his number and just moving on for good. No way he wanted to experience this call other than in his bleakest nightmares.
But did he do it? No, he didn't. He reveled in his pain, because it was the last thing he owned of her. The last bit of guidance in an otherwise obscure world.
/ Cirrostratus
He didn't go to the café where they wanted to meet up. Instead he went to the Presidio, wandering aimlessly through the trees, spotting glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge through the branches here and there. He was afraid of looking at his phone, but the angry vibrating of it in his jeans pocket told him that he had at least five missed calls and several more messages.
Why was he such a coward? He couldn't tell.
He texted her after some minutes of clearing his head with deep breaths of salty spring air, warmed by the sun shining from a milky sky, barely masking the perfect blue.
I'm sorry. I can't come. At least none if it was a lie.
/ Hole Punch Cloud
He heard her smooth voice, saw her warm smile, smelled her sweet scent while banging a woman, who was nothing like her, against the head board of a bed in a noble Washington hotel room.
/ Altocumulus
It was one of those phone calls where he expected being informed about her impending marriage any time soon, but instead she went for something completely unexpected.
"I will be at a conference in Oakland next week. Can I see you?"
He gulped the words down before they could re-enter his mind and fire up the fallow connections of his clouded brain. By then he already knew that his answer was taking much too long. "Are you coming…I mean are you—"
"I'm not with Jonathan anymore, if that's what you're asking. Haven't been in a year or so." She did sound angry in a certain way, but she wouldn't have called if that was all she solely felt.
/ Vapor Trail
She rang his doorbell with as much force as nobody ever before. Also, he couldn't remember ever giving her his address. But now she was here and there was nowhere to run.
He opened the door and looked into her furious eyes. It pained him to see there was still something else underneath.
"We need to stop this," he simply said; no greeting, no nothing.
"You don't want it to stop. That's the problem, Cal. Admit it."
His voice remained icy, his façade up. "I want it to stop." He didn't say hurting.
She just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You had your chances, you know. But you blew them. Or they blew you."
Hit and sunk. All of it—a man-made phenomenon. Not a natural one. Not the way it was supposed to go.
/ Morning Glory Cloud
He got up at 3 a.m. after a night in which sleep was impossible anyway, in order to drive to the airport and wait in front of the security check before the first aircraft departed on its way to Washington at 5:50. He wasn't even sure if he was at the right airport. And which of the flights she would take.
He waited for five hours—not daring getting a coffee or anything to eat for fear of missing her—before she turned up and approached him with a small wheeled bag in tow.
She slowed down, coming to a halt in front of him. He could read nothing on her, so he had to put all of it on his face instead. No masks, no lies, no clouding.
"I don't want this to stop."
"I know," she said, before moving on and slowly passing the gate to security check, giving him one last hopeful glance on the way.
He booked a ticket for the next flight to Washington as soon as her flight disappeared from the destination board. The best overpriced 900 dollars he had ever spent. Up there where the clouds live.
THE END