A/N: I honestly don't think I've got Cal down yet, so please tell me if anything sounds unlike him.
It wasn't very often that everything fell apart. But, it also wasn't very often that she dared to do something so brazen, so wrong, so sinfully delicious. It had felt so right, then. She never expected to feel this desperate ache in her chest, telling her that it wasn't right, telling her it was a mistake, or perhaps telling her that she had gotten it all wrong. She'd already come to regret the words that came out of her mouth that next morning, the burning lie.
"It meant nothing."
She looked at him over the rim of the glass he handed her. He was different now. More sure of his movements, careful not to touch her. His face was a blank slate and she knew that he was hiding from her, something that he'd never really done.
He'd looked into her eyes, just once, devastated when he saw regret in them. But he had forgotten what she had told him, so long ago.
"You can read emotions, but you can't read minds."
He didn't know that her regret wasn't in what had happened, but in the lie, in the way her words twisted his features into a pained expression that tugged at her heart, forever imprinted into her mind. He didn't know that what she'd done then, she'd do a thousand times over, that it could never mean nothing to her. That, in fact, it meant so much, it scared her.
"What aren't you saying?" She asked, bringing the glass to her lips.
The whiskey burned its way down her throat, a welcome heat. And when he looked her in the eye for the first time in what had felt like forever, she was filled with another heat entirely.
He continued to hide behind stilled facial muscles, not allowing her to see what he was feeling. She ought to think it was something bad. Sadness, maybe regret, but probably guilt. She shouldn't have left him feeling that way, she shouldn't have lied, but there was so much to lose, too many things much too important to her to lose.
"I'm sorry, love," he said, his voice strung with melancholy.
Her heart wrenched and she drew in a shaky breath. She put down her glass in favour of moving closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She was surprised to find him tense, too tense, before settling into her embrace.
She pulled back to look at him, shaking her head. Why was he sorry for simply giving her what she had asked for, practically begged for? For something she thought they both wanted?
"Why?" she asked, examining his features carefully.
He closed his eyes against a wave of shame and when he opened them, refused to meet hers.
"I took advantage of you," he said. "You didn't want this."
"Cal," she began, voice soft and steady, but he quickly interrupted her.
"You said it meant nothing, Gill. You don't do meaningless, so you must have done it for me. I should've seen that."
"I lied."
She said it quickly, squeezing her eyes shut and almost hoping he wouldn't hear it, but the anger that flashed over his face when she looked at him proved otherwise.
"Why'd you do that, Gill?"
"I'm sorry. I just, there was so much at risk, so much that I didn't want to lose. I thought that I could avoid losing the most important things. But I can't, can I?" She replied, tears pooling in her eyes.
"What are you getting at, then?" He implored.
She took a deep breath through her nose, steadying herself before she spoke.
"If it all went wrong, Cal, I wouldn't just lose a lover. I would lose my best friend, I would lose Em, I might even lose the Group. I would lose everything. I couldn't take that risk. I had to protect myself," she explained. "I had to lie."
He shook his head, standing and backing away from her. With each step, love's dagger lodged deeper and deeper into her heart.
"No, Gill, you didn't," he said, and with that he left the room.
She wiped her palms over her face in a moment of anguish, trying to think of what she could do to make it right, to make him forgive her, but all she could think of was what had happened the night before last. She downed the last of the whiskey in one long swig.
She hadn't meant for it to happen, but it wasn't really a surprise. They were bound to cross that line she had drawn so clearly eventually. It seemed that things were different now. She wasn't married to Alec anymore and she was no longer seeing Dave. Cal was finally done with Wallowski. And so when he teasingly moved in to kiss her as he'd always done, she didn't object, didn't pull away. She didn't really have a reason to.
And he was so sweet in that time, drawing away to ask her if something was wrong, if she was sure. In fact, she had never been more sure than she was in that moment. And it was wonderful, way beyond her expectations, perhaps even beyond the realm of her imagination. Flushed pink and out of breath, she'd asked him to take her home with him. And he never really could deny her.
"Damn it!" she cried when it finally dawned on her.
She slammed her empty glass down on the table and stood, rushing to leave the room. She had to find him and make things right before he could steel his resolve, decide that it was better their relationship remained only a professional one.
She thought he'd be hiding somewhere, keeping himself away from her, but he wasn't. She found him sitting on the couch in his office, pouring himself another glass as he became aware of her presence.
He drank down all of the amber liquid before looking up at her, such turmoil evident in his eyes. They looked much like stormy skies now.
"You think I don't know what its like to take risks, Gill, but I risk everything that matters to me with every case that I take on," he said. "I risk losing my money, my business, my image, my family. God, I know what it feels like to take a risk. But to lie? To me of all people? Now that's a betrayal."
"I'm sorry, Cal. Really, I am. I just didn't think-not about you."
"Greedy girl," he said, mostly teasingly although there was a hard edge of truth to it.
"Horribly," she agreed. "I know that it's hard for you, sometimes, to think that you're enough. I played on that, didn't I? Made you feel as if you weren't?"
"Gillian," he chastised, shaking his head.
"I'm a psychologist, I'm supposed to think. But you, you just muddle up my brain and I can hardly tell left from right let alone right from wrong. I never thought about what you might be feeling. But I was sure, Cal. I promise you that it was what I wanted. And I know you were scared, scared that I might regret it, scared that I might hate you in the morning, but I was scared, too."
He crossed the room to stand in front of her, to watch every expression that washed over her face.
"You've always done what you thought would make me happy. You've always taken unnecessary risks, that bit's just your nature. What if I had taken advantage of you? What if I had taken a huge risk and been mistaken? What if I had lost you?"
He pulled her into his embrace, stroking her hair.
"You couldn't lose me if you tried. I'm an obnoxious little bugger, aren't I?"
She laughed, a sound that instantly soothed his soul.
"Cal, the thing is, it's you that's supposed to take unnecessary risks, that's always been your nature. And I-I'm just..."
"Careful," he supplied.
"Right," she smiled. "I'm careful and you're the risk-taker. I can't risk all that I have for a sliver of a chance to have more. I just can't do that."
She pulled back to look at him, or rather to read him. But she was unsure of what she saw.
"Not when it comes to you," he said. "I can't take unnecessary risks when it comes to you."
She cocked her head, a small smile taking over her lips.
"I think, now, that the risk we took, it was definitely necessary, definitely needed to happen," she suggested.
"I suppose you're right," he said, bordering on a smile. "That damn line needed to be crossed."
She couldn't help the smile that crept up over her mouth and up to her eyes. Finding the joy in her bright blue eyes, he pulled her closer into his arms. When she didn't bury her face into his shoulder, but rather raised it so she could meet his eyes, he found the reward to all the risks he had ever taken in regards to her. A Gillian Foster, warm and willing in his arms with eyes only for him. A Gillian Foster, rising up to bring her lips to his. His Gillian Foster, giving to him what he had never believed he was worthy of receiving, especially not from a woman like her.
And as he kissed her back, trailing his tongue along her bottom lip, a smile found his lips. And he laughed, happiness just bubbling up over him as he realized that he finally had all that he could ever want, ever need.
"I forgive you, by the way," he said mere centimetres from her lips, only forgive wasn't quite the word he wanted to use.
"I'm glad," she replied, as she pressed her lips to his once again.