Was going through E/C withdrawal. Christmas fic, because, well, Christmas is all about family, giving and E/C angsty love, isn't it? Pliant is coming along, and Carillon Beach will have a resolution at some point, have not forgotten about it. Enjoy.

Maybe, Someday

One

He can see the lights on in the front room of her house. The Christmas tree is on, shining bright, and he grins a bit, thinking that she probably spent hours the week before decorating it, making it look like she pulled it right out of a Macy's commercial. It makes him grin a bit, thinking that she's probably been so proud of it.

Eric watches Calleigh from his car as she walks around the front living room where the tree is, blowing out candles, and then she draws her curtains a bit, just enough to still show off the tree. She got a real tree this year, and he knows that the novelty is going to wear off once she sees the circle of needles appear on her floor. She is very particular, very neat, especially about her floors. She polishes them and sweeps regularly. He knows this after spending most of his time with her in her house. He admits he's not the tidiest person around, tending to leave clothes in a pile in the bathroom, not putting things back where they belong, and being of the mindset that chores can always be done later. She never said a cross word to him about it, though.

She is so sweet like that.

The light in the front living room turns off and only the glow of the Christmas tree illuminates the space. The rest of the downstairs of her house darkens and then moments later, the lamp is on in her bedroom.

In the deep recesses of his sense memory, he conjures up the fresh, flowery smell of her bedroom, the soft lavender scent she washes her sheets in, the sweet, but soft smell of her perfume. The faint smell of vanilla and berries would always fill the air when she brushes out her long, blonde hair, and he would always chuckle when she muttered an "ow" following a deep frown when she caught a tangle or two. Such vivid memories that he has stored so that he has a memory of her for every mood.

It's been hard enough not working with Calleigh, but to not see her at all...to not be able to have the certainty of hearing her voice, smelling her skin, kissing her soft, supple lips and threading his fingers through her silky hair...it's been too much. Eric knows that after everything that's happened, the implicit trust they used to have has been broken. After the shooting and his return to work, she couldn't quite look at him the same. Her eyes held the weight of betrayal in them, and he recognized that he'd caused her the deepest pain, he pierced her very heart with his lies, his stubbornness, his refusal to let her help him do things the right way. He's been no better to her than the other men in her life. When there's no trust, there's nothing.

In the months that they've been apart, he's fiercely held onto what he had with her. Calleigh has been his mainstay, she helped him rebuild his life both professionally and personally. Her resilience and strength gave him a strength he'd never known before. The last three years have changed his life in ways that are irreversible. Getting shot on the job and surviving major brain surgery twice has done something to him. Everything he thought he was so sure of, seems fleeting to him now. He's still trying to make sense of the new lens through which he views the world. He woke up that morning he was due back at work, thinking that the last thing he wanted to do that day was go back. He thought he'd been ready, but he hadn't been because he felt as though he left so many other things undone. As if one brush with death hadn't been enough to irrevocably change his life, he'd experienced a second, and emotionally, that had been his undoing.

Watching that young couple die right in front of him, both in the same damn day, had done something to him. They'd both been on the cusp of a future together, and then it'd all been cruelly ripped away from them.

Eric knew what that felt like, being threatened with losing the one thing he needed, loved the most. Seeing Calleigh on that respirator had scared him. She'd lost consciousness in his embrace as he hooked his arm under her legs and lifted her lithe body up and carried her out to the ambulance, impatient for the paramedics to enter the building. He ran down the hallway, with her limp, almost lifeless body in his arms, then he gently laid her onto the gurney. On the way to the hospital, she stopped breathing completely, her heart rate slowing, her pulse thready and weak. He thought he was going to lose Calleigh, and losing her would surely be losing everything.

So when he watched as those two kids struggled and then lost the battle for their lives without being able to say one last "I love you," he knew that he couldn't work at CSI. Not right now, when he had so much more to discover about his life. When he had things that needed to be resolved within himself, with his family...with Calleigh.

"I can't imagine going to work without you..."

He'd uttered those words to Calleigh while she'd been in the hospital.

At that point, he really couldn't imagine arriving at work and not seeing her face. Seven years of working with her, seeing her face, hearing her voice...it would alter his world too much not having her by his side day in and day out.

The last few months though, he's had to because he left.

The decision to leave CSI had been a gradual one, but the final decision had been made when he watched that couple die, when he couldn't reign in his emotions and lost it with the CEO of the company that caused the deaths. The job had become his life, and then when he finally revealed his feelings to Calleigh and they began their relationship, he thought that maybe, just maybe he could put the job second for once and be happy with her.

Then came the betrayal.

He broke her heart.

But, he did it so that she wouldn't get hurt.

Eric didn't want any of what he was dealing with to touch her. He would never forgive himself if it did. His need to protect her and his need to rescue his father from a life he so clearly wanted out of clashed and then he found himself caught between two factions of his life. Calleigh made him choose, Sharova made him walk a fine line.

Eric doesn't regret saving his father because he believes that everyone deserves a second chance. Alexander Sharova is his father, and though he knows that he will never fully know the man, at least he's around and free and out there in the shadows. He doesn't think Calleigh will ever understand fully; she sees things in black and white, and to her, Sharova isn't a father, he's a criminal. He hates to think it, but he believes that part of her frustration had stemmed from some twisted jealousy.

Their relationship had been near-perfect.

They were happy, enjoying the time they were spending with each other, and things were progressing steadily, not too fast, but not too slow, either. When Calleigh was released from the hospital, he treated her to a light dinner and then she curled up into him as they watched a movie and ate some popcorn. Her body had felt smaller than usual, weakened by her stay in the hospital. She'd barely eaten while in the hospital, and her trauma caused her weight to drop. In those first few weeks, he simply just fed her. Anything she wanted, he made for her, and sure enough, he succeeded in his goal of filling her out again. The fullness came back in her face, and her soft, defined curves returned.

Once she fully recovered, he took her on a proper date, and that night they made love for the first time.

He grins.

Hands skimmed over silky, sweet-smelling flesh before his lips met hers for a deep, loving kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he gently nibbled at her lips before she opened her mouth and invited him in, exploring the taste of her mouth as his fingers threaded through her blonde hair, which was fanned out over the pillow.

Eric heard her whimper into his mouth and he gently pulled away, moving on to Calleigh's neck, leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses along the cord in her neck and she tilted her head back in ecstasy as one hand found a soft, warm breast and he began to squeeze and flick his thumb over her nipple. She arced up into his touch, then, moaning as she closed her eyes.

"Eric..."

He joined them and she gasped then whimpered as they fitted and molded together tightly.

"Calleigh..."

She brought him into a chaste kiss, bucking her hips up into his, making him lose all thought.

Eric remembers clearly how she sounded, tasted, felt when she arched up into him on a cry of pleasure. He remembers her beautiful face, and how it was aglow with ripe passion and newfound...love.

Because they'd been so happy, because for once, everything was going so well in both their lives, something had to go terribly wrong. It all just went fucking wrong and Eric finds himself now in a state of anger. The one relationship that he'd been in that had a fighting chance was broken apart because of his quest to find out the truth about his birth.

He kept knocking on the Devil's door and someone answered him. Alexander Sharova, who put a hit on him, who denied him, denied his mother, practically dismissing her as a whore. Calleigh hadn't liked what he was doing from the second he told her, but, he's always been one to finish what he started. That's when he drew Calleigh's ire, her jealousy.

Now he understands where she was coming from.

First, he could barely bring himself to tell her, his best friend, that he was living out of a seedy motel in a bad part of Miami. He knows that she would have had his back, but his protective instincts kicked in. That'd been a betrayal of everything she's held true of them, that if they couldn't talk to anyone else, at least they could talk to each other. He'd broken that for a bit, but it quickly healed.

But once he found out about his father, and then began to get to know him, that's when she showed her capacity for bitterness.

Calleigh has been hurt time and again by most of the men that have been in her life before; Eric knows that the value she holds closest to her heart is trust. Getting her to open up sometimes is like a delicate, life saving surgery, but once she does, the trust is earned, made stronger. He's known for years that Calleigh carries anger, resentment, and pain from her father's drinking and he's known that a lot of the reasons why her relationships have been so unsuccessful is because she has a fear that she will be let down. She always ends up second and it's hurt her deeply.

Eric thought that he would be the one to heal that wound, but he only twisted the knife deeper.

She became jealous and resentful of his father, and also of how easy it'd been for him to trust Sharova's word over her rationale. She wanted his complete, undivided allegiance and devotion at the cost of a truth that affected both of their lives, really. Did he put his own needs above hers? Maybe. Did he hurt her deeply? Yes. He shouldn't have lied to her, but he doesn't regret finding out the truth. He was hoping that she'd at least understand that.

They both carried years of anger, pain, hurt, and seemingly insurmountable needs into their relationship. Then the seeds of mistrust and suspicion had been sowed and bloomed into a wilted garden of disillusionment and a sadness that he hasn't experienced since Marisol died.

Calleigh was, is, his saving grace.

Calleigh.

How many times had he uttered her name in the middle of the night? In the middle of sweaty, feverish dreams or in the middle of a horrific nightmare?

Her name became a mantra when he'd been recovering the first time from his injury. It was almost as if, when he woke up in the hospital to find her sitting next to his bed, she'd had this light around her that told him that she was the one. That once he got out of that damn hospital, he was damn sure going to put the pieces of his fucked up life together so he could muster up the courage to tell her how he really felt about her.

A few months into that, he became so discouraged because he had to work through the residual effects of the shooting on top of sorting out and understanding his feelings for Calleigh. He had to make sure that he wasn't just simply projecting or fixating on her, as his therapist had warned him. He had to make sure that he wasn't "Conjuring up an image of Calleigh that exceeds the bounds of the reality in which you'd both been operating long before the shooting." In other words, was he trying to turn his friendship with her into something more because of his trauma? Or were his feelings for her genuine and not just because she'd been the one to take the initiative to help him?

But she had to be feeling something for him on a deeper level to care for him like she did, to cover for him and put her ass on the line for him, right?

"I appreciate you for appreciating me."

She had to have been at the same point that he was, realizing that their friendship was more than just what they've defined it to be. But calling it friendship was safe, sure, and unwavering, especially because of Jake.

Eric involuntarily clenches his jaw at the thought of the man's name.

Jake was the thorn in his side that finally, blessedly went away. Never has there ever been a human being in his life that has vexed him more than Jake Berkeley. He doesn't hate the guy. He's only hated one other guy before and that'd been Nick Townsend, Natalia's ex. Sure, when it came to dating and relationships, Eric admitted that he'd been an immature asshole, but he would never, ever even think of abusing a woman. That just...defies every social and moral code assigned to manhood. His blood boiled at the knowledge that Nick had abused Natalia and to this day, he's not sorry the bastard's dead.

Jake had posed less of a physical threat to Calleigh, but he certainly posed an emotional threat to her.

Eric simply couldn't understand for the life of him how such a beautiful, intelligent woman could stand to have her heart broken over and over again. It just didn't make sense. It'd always baffled him, from when he first began working with her, it baffled him. When she dated Hagan, he knew that something was amiss in that relationship. For one, Hagan had been too old for her; then, she'd been twenty five years old, bubbly, still wearing cute little bows and hair clips...not quite grown up and well...twenty five. John had been nearing forty at the time, and he thought that because she was younger, he could control her, make her into a wife and mother. Calleigh loved her job too much, and John let her bubbliness fool him because she was more intelligent that he gave her credit for. Eric thinks that he might have been intimidated by her, and while he doesn't think that he abused her physically, he thinks that John may have abused her emotionally, perhaps even harassed her after they broke up.

Calleigh lived with Hagan for a few months and in that time, she became more withdrawn, her moods were always dampened, and her schedule became his schedule. Hagan fell in love with her, and she left because she didn't want to be made to love him back.

In that time, Eric always stayed neutral, but watched her with a careful eye, pondering how she could take it, knowing what kind of woman she was.

Then Jake came back into her life, and Eric knew that she loved him. She had to, for her to let him manipulate her, abandon her, leave her alone when she needed him most. In his own way, Jake loved her back, but he was just as scarred and crippled emotionally as Calleigh.

There's a place inside her that needs validation, that needs love to fill the void.

Eric honestly thought that he could be the man in her life to do that.

He wanted to be the man in her life to heal every last hurt and hold her up and show her that she is important and worthy and for a little while, he was, until he caused more pain for her already damaged heart.

Now, here he is, a few years, a relationship, and a subsequent break up later, sitting in his car outside of her house like some creepy stalker wishing that he could be with her right now.

Oddly enough, all of the memories and the reflections aren't the things that brought him here to Bal Harbor. Not at all.

Eric sighs as he fingers the small, velvet box in his hand.

Over an hour has passed, and the man has paced a hole in the floor gazing into the case of engagement rings. He kept turning down the retailer's suggestion of calling a representative, sure that he would make his purchase soon.

Eric was very much aware that a proposal three months into a relationship was a bit soon, but he knew that the ring would come in handy very soon, and he was financially prepared to buy Calleigh one now and then save it for later. He spoke to his father about it, and Pavel Delko laughed heartily, shocking him because his father was a man of very few words...and hearty laughs for that matter. His father told him to buy a ring if he was absolutely sure about the direction of his relationship.

"Consider it an investment," Pavel said and that was just what Eric wanted to hear.

"Sir, would you like to speak with a representative?"

"No."

"Would you like-"

"That one."

"I'm sorry?"

"I want to buy that one."

A size five, platinum, circle cut diamond engagement ring.

Eric made sure to memorize every detail about her hand and fingers so that he could make the right choice. He rummaged through her jewelry box to figure out her exact taste and what she liked. She liked simple, not too showy, but not cheap either. She wore diamonds well, and she favored silver over gold. He took that knowledge with him to the jewelry store and bought her the ring. He hid it away, somehow finding the patience to wait for the right time to propose.

That time never came because of his father, the lies, the anger...everything.

Leaving CSI has given him a new perspective on things, though he hasn't had the time nor the inclination to have some kind of love life. Calleigh has had a significant impact on his life, and he doesn't think that he ever wants that impact to stop. He doesn't want what he feels for her to stop. He doesn't want the intimate bond between them to ever end.

He realized that when he opened up the drawer in his bedside table this morning to retrieve something or another, and his hand brushed over velvet. He found the ring he bought her all those months ago; more than that, he also found his resolve.

He was an idiot, that evening after the interview with Stetler, for not telling her right then and there that he was in love with her. His actions had communicated as much, but he knew that for Calleigh, hearing the words would mean that much more, and at the moment where it would have mattered to her, to both of them, most, he stayed silent, and he couldn't say it. Eric left, thinking that he may have just killed whatever was left of their relationship. He'd been too much of a coward again to tell her what he was feeling. Eric had deluded himself into thinking that maybe a separation was the best thing for them.

He bought his own load of bullshit, and he's pretty sure that she bought her own as well.

But then he found the ring he bought her.

All day today, Eric has been thinking, planning on how he wanted to approach her. It's Christmas Eve, he had hope.

Then that hope faded as the hours went by, each one bringing reality into the equation.

They've barely spoken to each other, they butted heads when they worked that case together, they haven't resolved all of the residual issues from the investigation and their break up, and he feared that she just simply wouldn't have him after the way things have gone. Perhaps he'd been the one to break her faith in love and trust in anyone once and for all. That would definitely break his heart to know that.

By the time he got up the courage to be able to drive to her house for the tail end of her Christmas party, he'd lost any and all courage he spent all day trying to muster. He's talked himself down, thinking, why the hell would you put yourself through the pain of a rejection?

He looks up at her window, seeing that the light in her bedroom is still on.

He's been out here well over an hour, and he is becoming tired.

Eric opens up the box and takes a look at the ring. It is beautiful, just right for her, and he supposes that it doesn't have to be an engagement ring. The cut is actually rather neutral, and can make for a pretty piece of jewelry. She can wear it with an outfit....he will give it to her as a Christmas gift, just leave it in her mailbox with a small note because that's what he's good at. He did the same thing with the truffles. He was both hoping that she was in her lab and that she wasn't. He didn't know what he was going to say, he just wanted to give her the truffles. He got his wish, she had already taken off and that made his task easier. The words were right there, but he was given yet another reprieve from verbalizing them.

Only Calleigh could make him want to bite his tongue.

He's been so goddamn patient, though!

Why not take a chance now when he's technically had three years to tell her out loud that he was completely in love with her?

How much longer is he going to hold back so as not to scare her?

Maybe Calleigh needs to be scared. Maybe she needs to understand that he is done playing games and that she needs to get over her insecurities and her fears and her perceived inadequacies and understand that chivalry isn't dead, that he is worthy of her trust and love, and that it's not going to be easy, it's not going to go her way all the time. He wants her to know that he will protect her, that all that happened between them was to keep her safe.

Eric wants her to know what her very existence means to him.

The light in her bedroom goes off and now all is completely dark in her house, except for the tree.

He sighs again, closing the box.

He thinks he'll come to accept that they weren't meant to be, that what they shared was good at the moment, a need that had been met. Perhaps they've sapped each other and their relationship of all the intensity and passion and left a trail of gray ashes in its wake.

In his hand, he holds two futures contained in one piece of jewelry.

He could grow a pair and get out of the fucking car, knock on her door until she answered, and get on one knee and confess everything to her amidst a proposal.

Or, he could pocket the ring, drive off and leave her be, let her have a peaceful Christmas and a peaceful life without the chaos of him in it. He could save the ring for another woman that he knows he won't love nearly as much as he loves Calleigh.

It's arrogant of him to think that time will be kind to him, but maybe, someday, if he were to drive off now, that when he comes back, he will be able to get out of the goddamn car, because the rest will follow, free from the confines of his Prius.

He puts the ring into his pocket then he turns the key in the ignition and his car starts with a clean hum. Just as Eric is about to pull away, there is a sharp knocking on the passenger side window.

TBC