He needs this. She knows it, but she doesn't understand. She assumes it's Wallowski. It's not. Well, not really. He wants Wallowski…on the streets, in bed. He needsthis.
"Put your hand on your heart and tell me you think Wallowski's clean."
"What, you mean clean like you?"
He reminds her. She has her secrets. She's not clean. She's not all that harmless either. She may not want to acknowledge it, but she's dangerous…or she could be. She wants to protect him, wants to shield him, wants to play nurse. She can't. Or at least she shouldn't. They're way beyond that now.
"Well, thanks for your help."
"Oh, you wanted me to lie? I see now."
Sometimes her integrity approaches purity. Purity without naïveté. He admires her for it and he resents her for it. Right now, he wishes like hell she wasn't. That's when he feels like a bastard. That's when it feels like contamination. But he needs this.
"Oi! What you walking away for? Hey? That's not right. Don't do that!"
"Nevermind."
"I'm not going anywhere, Gill, so let's have it."
She can't walk away. She shouldn't. That's not their arrangement. She knows the rules. She bloody well lives by them. She should know that he's not going to let her go. And he's not going to let this go.
"What do you see in her, Cal?"
"I'd have done the same thing for my partner. It's called loyalty."
There, he said it. He told her what he needs. His voice breaks over the word, enough for her to hear it. He needs her to hear it. He needs her to know that it has to be this way. It has to be unconditional.
She smirks. He knows he's hurt her. He can see that all over her face.
"That's kind of ironic…from where I'm standing."
She retorts. She's right, of course, but she's still holding onto the truth. And the truth, her truth, is what will take her away from him, eventually. He needs her to let go of it. He needs her to hold onto him with both hands, the way he holds onto her.
"Well, is Wallowski lying?"
He looks back at her with deadened eyes. He doesn't plead.
She lies. He can see that she hates it. She hates everything about it. She's chosen him over the truth and she hates him for it.
"Dr. Lightman?"
She asks silently if he got what he needed from her, if this is what he wanted.
"Yeah, she's clean…as a whistle."
He forgot. In his need to feel both her hands on him, to make her let go, he forgot. It was a miscalculation, really. He won't say that he was wrong. But this isn't what he wanted.