TITLE: The one in which Cal realizes he is the star of a TV show
GENRE: Crack!fic
CHARACTERS: Cal, Gillian
PAIRING: Cal/Gillian
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None
WORDS: 1,100
SUMMARY: This nonsense is impossible to summarize. #LieToMeLives (regardless of what this fic might be saying)

There had been clues throughout. Liars too good to be true here, well-positioned cans of backed beans there. That one time a suicide bomber looked like a farmer from Kentucky (really?), the day when he dug his own grave while his team investigated UFO sightings (come on!), or when Foster said she liked to be tied up and it wasn't a lie (don't even go there!).

(What about all the women falling for him and his bad boy attitude rounded off with an English accent in just an instant? Oh dear.)

And he—the one who had mastered deception, brought it to world fame with several bestselling books (available from $17.99 at your local book store), who could read it on the face of other people like Gillian read a romance novel—did not realize it. At least not any earlier.

He felt betrayed. Used. Empty.

(Though, he pretended that all these women falling for him were not a set-up. He simply felt better that way.)

Now he was here on his own in the dark. A glass of scotch in his hand, too many thoughts in his head, asking himself repeatedly whether he was the only one not in on the joke. He couldn't think of a British slang word suitable enough to express it all, but maybe it was better that way, as American audiences might not have understood.

There was only one place to go. At this time of the night and in general. And he went there, knocking on her door, checking his surroundings carefully while waiting for her to let him in. (Just to be clear: He had other friends as well. However, he only ever remembered them when they conveniently appeared on the scene to entrap him in a new case. Funny how that worked.)

She checked who it was through the curtain first, before opening the door and seemingly bracing herself for what was to come. With him one always should.

"You knew, right?" Why bother with all the small talk leading up to the meaty part of a conversation? He had never been one for it.

Gillian blinked sleepily and obviously had a hard time focusing. "Knew what? That you're insane? Yes, I did."

"You knew about the show."

"I'll just continue this, sorry: Which show?"

"The one we were on. A TV show. The one about me." He wanted to shake her and get the truth out, because he sure as hell couldn't get it from her face. Smart move of the producers to hire his blind spot as the sidekick.

"Why would anyone make a TV show about you?" she asked, squinting her eyes and shaking her head slowly in the process.

"Why not?" He couldn't understand the initial question or what it implied.

"What makes you so sure it's a show about you? It could be a show about a smart, good-looking, fierce, yet incredibly kind-hearted woman, who deals with a mad scientist and his antics surprisingly well. I mean, it should be, now that I just said it out loud."

"You think?" he asked and thought about it. "It did sound good the way you just described it. I might watch it."

"See." She enjoyed the triumph a little too much for his taste. "So anyway, you think there's this show on TV and it might be about you? I really had no clue, Cal."

He couldn't detect a lie. Eyes squinting, head tilting, slouching in an invisible chair while actually still standing—nothing helped. Instead a sudden thought hit him. "It must have been Rader, that tosser. He sold the rights to my life story to an evil TV network. One that's known for having no pity. You ever watched Firefly?"

"No, sorry. So, Rader, huh?"

It was the only explanation that made sense. "He set me up to get back at me."

Her shaking her head in disbelief had become a constant movement by now. "For what? You never told me what happened between the two of you."

It all became clear to him now. The puzzle pieces suddenly fit together. "It was all about you. All this time, it was about you," he pondered without evident coherency. "He wanted you, but I wouldn't let him have you. I wanted you more." He didn't even know what he was saying anymore.

It seemed like the first time her curiosity was truly piqued. "Are you saying you're in love with me? Why didn't you just say so?"

He snapped back into this strange kind of reality; stranger than fiction could be. „I wanted to tell you, I really did! But then we got canceled. It all makes sense now! He didn't want me to tell you and they canceled the show."

She rolled her eyes again and probably gave up. "I'm not sure I understand anything of what you're saying."

Maybe he didn't either, but what little he did understand made a weird kind of sense. "Don't worry, love. I'll think of a good revenge. Maybe I'll get Lifetime to make a sappy show about him."

"You do that," she just said and stifled a yawn.

He came a little closer and could sense her uncertainty on what to expect from him next. "You think I'm good-looking?" he whispered earnestly. "I wanna be good-looking when I'm on TV."

She let some captured air out of her lungs. "But you said we're canceled? What does it matter?"

"What about re-runs, DVDs, Netflix?"

"It's too late, Cal. What's done is done. After cancellation we only live on in dirty dreams and even dirtier fanfiction," she added soberly.

"You mean somebody could be writing a Fifty Shades of Grey type of fanfiction based on us and release it as a real book, which will be made into a real movie? Shown in real cinemas worldwide? And I could be the sexy lead?"

She just rolled her eyes at him. "You're surprisingly well-informed. And so full of yourself."

"Emily. That's all Emily's doing. I mean the well-informed part. The other one is just purely me."

She held the door open wider for him to finally enter. "Come on in, I think you've had some four or five drinks too many. Believe me, nobody else out there is interested in you."

"I'm not drunk," he grumbled and followed her inside.

"Sure, sure, big TV star."

THE END