Summary: A few days after the events of 'Funhouse', Cal relives some more memories and receives another birthday present.
Disclaimer: Lie to Me is not mine.
Rating: T. Strong language and mentions of domestic violence.
A/N: After my first, very tentative fray into writing for this wonderful show, here's something with a little more meat on the bones. This started life as three separate ideas and then leapt into one story in my brain. I realised the other day that the reference to the ferry going by in 'Funhouse' was a joke, so I had to rework this very slightly, hopefully I'm not taking too much of a liberty with the actual content of the episode. I didn't quite mean for it to be this angsty, but hopefully the end will balance it out a touch. I don't write songfic as such, but most of the things that pour out of my head are inspired by music, and this story owes a debt (and its title) to the wonderful 'Freight Ships' by Small Town Jones, and also to 'Plain Sailing Weather' by Frank Turner, which finally gave me the boot up the arse to finish this. I'm clearly experiencing some kind of boating obsession at the moment!
Dedication: For K. You'll probably never read this, but it is my thank you for your never-ending support and impeccable taste in television, which led me to this wonderful programme. I wish things were easier sometimes.
Days later, behind briefly closed lids in the never-ending nothing of midday on a Monday, he was reliving those painful parts of his youth again. Without the chemical clarity of the drugs it was a foggy haze, but he could make out the hard edge of the funnel cutting through the dank mist, could practically smell the mud and taste the gritty silt in the air. Although they'd joked about the ferry at the seaside, on other trips visiting family, they had watched a boat pass many times. The ferry in question had been the Birkenhead to Belfast service. He still remembered the first time he saw it, aged six, watching it miles away across the Mersey, knees frozen against the railings, breath looping in the frigid air, the warm glow of his mother's cheek pressed against his face as she held him up for a better look. The city of Liverpool seemed equally huge behind them, its historic waterfront buildings stretching out in the background.
He was about ten years old when his father first mentioned that the ferry in question would take his mum to her home, back to her roots.
"Why can't we go?" he'd asked.
"It's really not safe, Cal," she'd told him, the sadness in her tone cutting deep and heavy in the darkening grey of mid-October. Decades later, he'd discover first-hand just what she meant, how the danger still lurked even after the promise of peace processes, and even lay hidden under the murky cloaks of cover-ups. Shutting his eyes a little tighter, he felt a slight trickle of warmth fuse through him as he remembered her voice again; always soft, ever-gentle, lilting, a summer breeze even in wintry air. The comfort was shockingly temporary as the memories began to mesh together again, his father fighting his way to the fore again.
Cal considered that it was so very much like the bastard to have made that observation about the boat's destination aloud. To have them there, time and again, whether in the summer, or on half-term or a Bank Holiday, watching that fucking ferry. To offer his mother a piece of home, a possibility of better memories, but to do so at a distance, across that wide, cavernous river, on a boat they would never board. To hang out the tantalising promise of some kind of happiness and always leave her disappointed.
Another pattern that his father inevitably fell into on any trip away or that solitary holiday was taking advantage of the warm hospitality always offered in the north. Pint after pint of Guinness would become a blur of black bleeding into cream, until fists flew into flesh and blood flowed as fast and as steady as the tide. So much for a holiday. More like a fucking tragedy, in which the woman that had brought him into the world had escaped one type of cyclical violence, and fallen straight into another. From terrorism to terror at the hands of the man who was meant to love her.
At sixteen, and having felt those fists himself, he'd felt bullish enough to fight back, barely holding back the tension in his growing muscles, desperate to feel the sharp-edged rush of adrenaline mould with the satisfaction of giving his father a taste of his own medicine. How he imagined the tiny thrill of seeing the evidence of that handiwork in the bleak dawn, a perfect violet halo arching up from the old git's wizened cheek to his ever-angry eyes. Watch the ferry go by with a black eye, you fucking bastard. But it remained a fantasy, as he had been wise enough, even then, not to continue the cycle of violence. Perhaps punching a ghost would be the only catharsis, the slightest sliver of relief.
As much as he despised the ferry, somehow he felt as if he'd watched boats passing for years, which was not particularly strange for someone from an island nation. In Oxford he'd often watched the rowers from his college practicing on the Cherwell, their blue and maroon blades cutting the water in perfect synchronicity, the cox's rhythmic chanting commanding them on. That was the better option than having to justify to some bloke born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a stick firmly wedged up his arse why you had been pissed out of your mind during Monday morning's lectures.
Early on his time in Washington, DC, he'd been working on an assignment in Baltimore. The city's busy port had bustled away in the background, cranes levering giant containers from the freight ships docked there.
Just lately he felt like he knew what it's like to be one of those vessels. Mainly because he was carrying the weight of the secret of loving his best friend, and feeling it grow ever-heavier as time passed. It was something as colourful as those shipping containers, really. Red with the deep, rich veins of desire, green with the oh-so-rational envy of every other man that put his hands on her, black with the darkness of both their demons, brown with the ordinary and brilliantly simple parts of life, pink, because, well, she loved it, and yellow with the promise of a brighter future. All those many colours and varied emotions, bolted up, shut tight, laden heavy for a voyage that had lasted for years, on a ship searching for port.
The depths of his reverie were finally broken by rhythmic footsteps and the slightest knock on the door. Gillian was soon standing there before him, a mysterious maroon box clasped tightly in her hands, a slight grin curling up on her lips.
"I brought you a little something… for your birthday." "I know that you really wanted to ignore it, but I couldn't resist." She hadn't really meant for it to seem so enigmatic, but knew that both her tone and the plain box were making him desperate to find out what was inside. Unable to ignore the mystery for a second longer, he leant forward and took the gift from her hands, watching as she moved to sit down opposite him.
"Bringin' me somethin' irresistible, eh? You didn't need to bother with the box as well, then. Just yourself would be enough." Playfulness danced through his words, and then he studied her more intently, as eager as ever to gauge her reaction.
"Oh, trust me, Cal, you'll want what's in the box," she replied swiftly, keeping focus on the gift, while the ever-welcome flirtatious banter made her smile wider.
A minute later, he was looking at a large, plump, perfectly baked chocolate muffin with a slim, bright pink candle plunged into its spongy centre.
"It's homemade, but I promise there are no mind-altering substances inside," she continued, suspecting that she was probably eyeing the treat with more than a little envy.
"Only one candle, Gill? You flatter me."
"Well, I couldn't let you get out of breath blowing them all out," she joked, but soon felt the slightest pang of concern as she saw a ripple of sadness pull itself across his features.
"You think I was just lucky that I saw my Mum when I was off my face?" He'd wanted to try and share this with her much closer to the aftermath, even though she'd seen the grainy video of it all, he'd wanted to be lucid and calm and wonder if it was somehow possible to isolate his mother from all the rest that had gone on in that bloody place. In taking another fleeting glance at the chocolate muffin, he knew that Gillian knew that too, because she could have baked him anything else from what he knew was a large repertoire.
"Wayne clearly didn't experience anything that was in any way beneficial, and you saw what happened to Eli. You were violent and more unpredictable than ever, and you were reunited with a man that you hated."
"Apart from all that, it was perfect," he mused, fingers making a circle in the air as he spoke.
"You've been thinking about your Mom a lot recently. It might have happened without the drugs. I wouldn't recommend that you do it again."
"It was so bloody real, though." "She told me to stop blamin' myself."
"She's right. She wants you to be at peace with it now. Whatever it was that got woken up by all those chemicals, that's what it was trying to tell you."
"Besides, she doesn't really live in your mind, anyway." "She's in here, right?" Gillian slipped her hand over her heart to emphasise the point, feeling that she could have said much more as a psychologist, but had chosen to look at the situation purely as a best friend, where the deep cut of emotion overrode everything else. Cal nodded in silent agreement, acutely aware of the unspoken feeling passing between them in some kind of wordless osmosis. Another slight jab of anguish jolted through his muscles as he wondered if he would ever find the right words to tell her just how grateful he was that she was always there.
"There's still a lot of the future that we all have to look forward to, as much as we have to deal with the past," she added, somewhat surprised by her forward-looking optimism. Nevertheless, she was certain that her unintentional forethought had broken a little more of the fog around him when he produced a Swiss Army knife from the myriad of objects in his desk drawer, quickly hovering the blade over the muffin with a questioning glance.
"And does it start with us sharin' this muffin?" Not so bloody likely, he thought, ridiculously certain that firstly, she wanted him to enjoy it on his own, and secondly, that she never really wanted to share anything that was composed from the rich darkness of cocoa.
"No, Cal, it's a gift. And I have a bigger one in my desk drawer. Which is waiting for me, along with a large pile of invoices." Letting out the slightest sigh, she rose from where she had been sitting and turned to leave, reluctantly giving in to the tiresome pull of paperwork and deadlines.
"Gill? Hold on a minute, love."
Halfway between his desk and the doorway, he pulled her into his arms, both lost and at home and ever-so-slightly breathless from the wild crosscurrents of affection and melancholy. "Thank you."
Behind closed lids, encircled in the endless comfort of her embrace, he saw a hopeful future – a freight ship, finally docked in port. The sea was still, mirror-flat and perfect. In slow, careful movements, its precious cargo was unloaded, piece by piece, bit by bit. The weight began to ease, while time was as unmoving as the water beneath the boat. Finally, those coloured containers merged and blended, arcing out into a rainbow.