A special thanks to ThePoisonousTiger who beta'ed this one-shot.
Summary: Cal realizes a little detail, an insignificant detail. But is it so insignificant?
Genre : Romance & Family
Rating : T
This one-shot takes place after 2x14 "React to Contact"
Disclaimer : I don't own Lie to Me
Cal was finally at home. Just after work, he had gone to the hospital to have a brain scan. Now, sitting at the table in the living room, he was studying his brain reactions to various pictures. A genuine grin crossed his face, and he stepped up to Emily who was cooking in the kitchen.
"Look at this! You're gonna love this. Check that out. What do you see?" Cal asked happily. He put the laptop on the kitchen table, so Emily could see the screen. On the left side, there was a picture of her father and herself, and on the right side, the brain image.
"Hey, wrinkles!" she said. "Like the dogs with their wrinkled faces."
"Yeah, the Sharpei," Cal agreed.
"The brain is ugly," Emily pointed out.
"That's my brain!"
"Oh oh, you have a … very awesome brain," Emily corrected.
Cal thrust out his chest and smiled. "Thank you very much! Okay. You see those areas here; that it's supposed to be love."
Emily moved closer and looked at the picture, smiling at the look on each of their faces, exhilaration on hers and pure love on Cal's. She examined brain image beside the picture, and it confirmed the emotion she'd read on her father's face. "Ohhhhhhhhhh, you looked at a picture of me."
"Yeah, great, huh." Cal clicked the touchpad and a photo of Gillian appeared.
"Oh! Gillian Foster. Boom! Fourth of July!" Emily exclaimed.
Cal gives a half-shrug. "Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?"
Emily shook her head. Even with a material evidence of his love for Gillian, her father kept denying it and finding it "funny". She only half-heard him as he began discussing about brain function.
"You know the neurons—"
"Do you love Gillian?" she asked, interrupting him.
"What? Of course, I love her," retorts Cal. "She's my best friend."
"No, it's more than that," Emily countered. "You're in love with her. Stop denying the truth." She pointed at the laptop screen. "Look at your brain image. It is lit up like a firework when you're looking at Gillian."
Cal frowned as Emily moved the images back to the one with Gillian. He raised an eyebrow and focused on the screen; Emily went back to fixing the meal. She watched him out of the corner of her eye: her father might be deep in thought because he hadn't moved for a couple of minutes.
Indeed, in Cal's mind, the ideas were bumping into each other. Does he love Gillian more than just her best friend? No, it's impossible. True, she is gorgeous, smart, intelligent, sensitive, kind. She's always there when he needs her. She often worries about him; in a word, she is the most wonderful woman in the world. And he is definitively not the most wonderful man in the world.
Cal sighed. So was he really in love with her? Of course, since he knew her and, more precisely, since they both divorced, he's been having inappropriate dreams about her, but it doesn't mean he's in love with her, does it? Admittedly, he can't have a day without her because a day without her is a dull and gloomy day. A day which doesn't end with Gillian's visit in his office where they could discuss or simply be together is a miserable day.
Well, he needed her. Yes! He needed to see her, to feel her close to him, to hear her melodious voice and her laugh, to touch her (her arm, her shoulder, her hand, her waist), to watch her eating her sweets, to smell her perfume. Over the years she has become essential, vital for him: his oxygen, the reason he gets up in the morning, the only person who knows how to calm him, the only person who really means something to him (besides his daughter).
Shit, he was in love with his best friend ! Cal tried hard not to show his emotions on his face. Emily may not be a detection expert, but she'd learned a lot from him. How did he get to this point? How did he manage to fall for love's little game? Even though with Gillian, everything is so easy, so possible, and so simple! It's true he was crazy about her. But what would he do with this new information?
Faced with this reality, he felt his face get hot. Emily watched his father and saw on his face turning red the moment he accepted this new revelation. She smiled. She had pushed her father to face facts. Honestly, in her opinion, her dad and Gillian were made to be together. She always knew it. Well maybe not always, but she saw how Gillian helped and supported her father after his divorce, how she never gave up on him even when he badly and bitterly yelled at her to get lost.
At that time, she admired Gill's strength and fidelity. Well, Emily definitely loved Gillian. They had always been close. Emily loved spending time with her; she knew she could talk to her, confide in her because Gillian always treats her like an adult. She really considered Gill like her second mother, and as she had told Gillian one day, her father was so much happier when he was with her. To Emily, Gillian was her father's soulmate, the woman who was meant for him, the woman of his life, the one and only.
"Dad, are you okay?" Emily tried not to smile too widely at this question.
Surprised, he jumped and turned to look at Emily, his hand on his heart. "Are you crazy? You scared me. Why'd you yell?"
"I didn't yell, Dad," Emily countered, "but you must be lost in your thoughts cuz you had been staring at the laptop for the last ten minutes. Are you sure everything's alright?"
"Of course, everything's all right," Cal said, turning away from the laptop. "I really don't know what you're talking about. Is the meal ready?"
"I think in your jargon, that's called deflection, isn't it?" Emily said with a smirk.
"Enough, Em... So how was your day?"
Emily sighed; she might as well give up pushing him any further and explain her day to her father. An hour later, Cal washed the dishes, his mind miles away while Emily was watching TV.
"I'm going to bed," Emily said as she got up from her chair. "I'm exhausted. Good night, daddy." She strolled over to him and kissed him.
"Good night, love," Cal said giving her a quick peck on the cheek. "Sweet dreams. See ya tomorrow."
While she was climbing the stairs, Cal heard her mumbling "You should tell her before it's too late". He turned to her to argue with her comment, but she was gone. He went to the sofa, put his head on his hands and sighed. How could he tell Gillian he loves her? Should he tell her or keep on pretending they were "just friends"? He felt his heart pound in his chest. What if he lost her or her friendship? What if he disappointed her? He couldn't handle that. What if he wasn't good enough to be with her? What if he mucked it up again like he did with Zoe? He didn't think he knew how to love her like she deserves.
Then the thought of her meeting someone who would satisfy her in every way came into his mind. He thought of her going away, abandoning him, leaving him. Like his mother, like Zoe, like everybody around him. He felt the acid in his stomach kick up, and this feeling was worse than when he thought about not being good enough for her.
All this life, his creed was "Don't get attached to anybody in order to never be abandoned". But with Gillian, he lowered his guard; he let her penetrate his wall. So now, he had to pay for it. Because Gillian could never have the same feelings. She could never love a selfish, insensitive, dangerous man like him. What was he going to do? Now he had this revelation, working with her will become a nightmare. He could no longer look at Gillian like before, could no longer admire her perfect body in her skin-tight dresses without having inappropriate thoughts. He could no longer touch her without feeling aroused. Shit, he was doomed.
At that moment, he felt cursed for having a so brilliant daughter and for showing her the brain images. What an idiot he was ! He was sure he would never get any sleep at all that night. There was too much chance he would dream and a really different, boiling and explosive firework would illuminate and overheat his brain.