A/N: For holdmyheart. Because she is a great listener, has made wonderful contributions to countless Lie to Me sites/communities, etc, and is all-around pretty much awesome. Happy Birthday!

Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing for funsies.

Birthday Parties

Cal knew Gillian was up to something.

The two partners were seated in the conference room, ostensibly providing Loker with their undivided attention. He was presenting the culmination of his research on deception in people diagnosed as schizophrenic. It was a science-heavy topic, and one which had required much assistance from Gillian. Schizophrenic patients, believing in their own delusions and finding it difficult to separate fantasy from reality, were exceedingly complex people to read.

Cal was slouched in his chair, an elbow propped on the chair's arm. His head was cocked, resting against a loose fist. He knew he should give more consideration to Loker's research, but Gillian was providing far too great a distraction.

She was seated across from him, chair turned towards the front of the room. Her back was straight, one arm placed gently on the tabletop. Every couple minutes, her head would tilt slightly in Cal's direction, and he would catch her eyes. She always looked away after a second, but not before he watched her force away a coy little smile, blue eyes crinkled and happy.

Cal was so pre-occupied with her odd behavior that he almost missed the end of the presentation. Gillian pushed back from her chair and walked over to Loker, Cal following close behind. She offered some words of encouragement, and Cal studied her closely as she spoke.

To Loker, he absently said, "Well done. Keep at it, then." He turned to Gillian. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have a moment. I'm late for a meeting with Congressman Kinsey," she replied. Her tone was apologetic, but the way she was biting her lower lip made it seem like she was trying to conceal another smile.

Cal exaggerated his suspicion of her behavior. He narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together into a thin line. It had the desired effect, and her expression blossomed into a full-blown grin.

"What?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

Rather than answer, he stated, "I thought you had a meeting."

"You're right. I do," she responded, adding in a teasing voice, "Sorry, I don't have time to play right now."

"It's alright," he smirked. "Later then?"

"'Bye, Cal!" Gillian called over her shoulder as she walked away, hips swaying gently in time with the click of her heels. He allowed his eyes to roam up and down her body as she left. He had been complaining about the recent heat wave to his secretary that very morning. But if the heat caused Gillian to dress like that, Cal decided he could stand for a little rise in temperature.

A split second after the sound of her shoes had faded to silence, Cal remembered that he was not alone in the room. He looked over at Loker, who was gazing steadily at the floor, eyebrows raised in a mixture of surprise and amusement.

"Shut up," Cal told the younger man, giving him a bland look, before walking briskly out of the meeting room.

As he traveled down the hall, he could barely make out Loker's flabbergasted voice muttering, "I didn't say anything."

A possible solution came to Cal sometime after lunch, after a phone call from Emily reminding him that they were supposed to have dinner that night for his birthday, and if he forgot about their plans together, she was really never gonna forgive him this time. His birthday actually wasn't until tomorrow night, but Emily had a field trip with her school's debate team, so they were celebrating a day early.

Gillian was in and out of meetings all afternoon, and it wasn't until things were winding down in the evening that he was able to corner her. She was curled up in her office chair, pen held loosely in one hand while she studied a pile of papers on her desk. She looked up when Cal walked in, offering him a small smile.

He hovered just inside her doorway, holding her gaze for a moment before saying, "No surprise party."

"What?" she huffed with a small laugh.

"I mean it. No party," he commanded, this time emphasizing by pointing a finger in her direction.

"Oh come on. Everyone loves a party, Cal," she grinned.

"Not me," he lamented.

"But there's presents," If possible, her smile grew larger as she added, "and cake."

"The guests all pretend they give a rat's arse about the person while the unfortunate bloke who's another year older is depressed because he realizes another wretched, wasted year has gone by, and all he's really accomplished is coming another year closer to dying. So no, I don't like parties," he finished.

Gillian pushed her chair away from her desk, and he noticed that her feet were curled up under her. He tried not to openly gaze at her legs, her scrunched position having caused her dress to ride up slightly.

"You're such a curmudgeon, Cal," she told him, before assuaging his fears. "But don't worry. I haven't been planning a surprise party. Although if I had been, I would be very disappointed that you were so pessimistic about the idea."

He gave her a strange look, causing her to add, "I said disappointed. I didn't say I'd be surprised."

He nodded, rocking back on his heels. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

"I'm heading out. Em's taking me out to dinner," he explained.

Gillian nodded. "That's right, she has her debate team tomorrow."

Cal found himself nodding along with her, but stopped in surprise after a second of thought, brows furrowed. "How'd you know 'bout her trip?"

Gillian rewarded him with the small, secretive smile she'd been hiding from him at their meeting with Loker. Cal considered pressing harder on the reason for her strange behavior, but he felt his cell phone start vibrating in his pocket, and he knew it would be his daughter on the other end of the line.

"Speak of the devil," he muttered, digging into his pocket as he backed out of the door.

"Oh, Cal!" Gillian called. He waited on her as she reached around for something from under her desk and unfolded her legs from underneath her. He realized she had slipped her shoes off to do paperwork and was putting them on now to follow him into the hall. The idea made him smile.

She walked briskly, coming to stop a foot away, smoothing out her dress. She asked, "Are you busy tomorrow night?"

"You mean on my birthday?" Cal queried, slightly incredulous.

"With all your pessimistic talk about birthdays and parties, you can't expect me to believe you have plans," she joked, but he could see she was slightly uncertain, worried she may have miscalculated.

"Oh, I did have plans," he said, all sarcasm and with a wry quirk of his lips. "Huge plans, monumental plans, just the best damn plans in the world. Why, what'cha got?"

"Oh, great, you're not busy. You're coming to my place for dinner," she told him cheerily.

He lessened the sting of the long-suffering look he gave her by leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. "Of course I am. 'Bye, love."

"'Bye, Cal."

Cal leaned back on Gillian's sofa, grasping the neck of a beer bottle and idly watching her as she dug into the drawer of her end table.

"Did I already tell you that dinner was fantastic?" he wondered, knowing the answer but wanting to see her happy blush once more.

She glanced up from her perusal and smiled, "Yes. At least three times in the past twenty minutes."

"I forgot. Must be all this alcohol. You're trying to get me drunk," he explained, waving his beer bottle in demonstration.

"So I could have my wicked way with you?" she asked with a laugh. At his nod, she continued, "I think you would need more than two beers for that."

"You'd be surprised," he bantered, keeping his tone purposefully light and waggling his eyebrows when she glanced at him.

"You keep this up, and I'm not giving you your birthday present," Gillian threatened, pulling a wrapped package from the drawer she had been investigating. She practically sauntered over to the couch, waving the present back and forth, taunting him.

He raised his free hand and reached out towards her. "C'mon. Let's have it, then."

She handed him the present, which he placed in his lap so he could grasp her hand and pull her onto the couch beside him. Her expression was almost giddy as she watched him peel back the wrapping paper, and he had to force himself to pay attention to the present, as he was rather distracted by her apparent glee.

He pulled out a DVD, reading the cover, "The Invention of Lying."

Gillian was quick to elaborate, "It's a movie that takes place in a world where people don't know how to lie. But then one man finds out that he actually can lie, but no one else can."

"Well don't spoil the whole movie," he kidded.

She ignored him, instead opting to slip the DVD from his hands and attempt to remove the plastic.

"What, are we watching it now?" Cal continued to try and rile her. She responded by rolling up the plastic along with the wrapping paper into a little ball and bouncing it off his forehead.

"Hey, now," he objected, reaching for her to retaliate. Gillian giggled and slipped from his grasp, walking to her television and DVD player to put in the disk. Cal relaxed back against the sofa, a warm feeling spreading through his chest as he watched her. Once the movie was properly started, she returned to the sofa and sat next to him, close but not touching.

"So this is what you've been so excited about these past coupl'a days?" he asked her quietly.

The smile she gave him was shy. "Yeah. We've both been so busy lately. We haven't hardly seen each other outside of work."

He felt a sharp pang in his heart as he realized he had missed her. He threw his arm on the back of the couch and motioned towards her. "C'mere."

She smiled and scooted closer to him, snuggling against his side. She softly inquired, "Do you still hate birthday parties?"

He squeezed her shoulder. "Quiet, love. The movie's starting."