So, here we have chapter two, at last. Parts of it, I'm still not sure of.. Parts of it, I really love.. So I hope you will all focus on the parts that I love, and I hope you'll love them, too.

Also, I really want to thank everybody who reviewed chapter one, it really does mean so much to me.


She wakes up a little disoriënted, only to realise after mere seconds that she's lying on the couch in her office. She must have fallen asleep after taking the advil that afternoon. She sits up to see Cal sitting behind her desk, typing on his laptop.

"Have a good nap?" he asks without looking up from his screen. "What time is it?" she asks, rubbing her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Very nice to see you too, Foster," he says, still staring intently at his screen. "It's six thirty. All of our hardworking employees went home about an hour ago," he says with dripping sarcasm.

"Shit," she curses under her breath. "I have to go. Why didn't you wake me?" she asks.

Cal looks up from his laptop and shrugs. "Didn't know you were in a hurry. Didn't tell me anything," he says, the accusation lying thick on his words. "Besides, you looked like you needed your beautysleep," he says.

She grabs her shoes and starts to put them back on. "Thanks," she mutters in response. "Where you going?" Cal asks.

She looks up at him. "Home," she says. "I… I'm supposed to meet somebody there."

Cal raises his eyebrows. "Okay," he says, starting to type on his laptop again. She sighs. "Cal, I'm sorry I can't tell you. It's just that I don't even understand what's going on, so how could you?" she attempts to explain.

"I probably won't," he answers. "But I can still listen," he shrugs his shoulders, "be a bit helpful, maybe?"

"Thanks," she whispers. She does want to tell him, she just wants to make up her own mind, first.

"I promise I'll tell you," she says. "Just, not just yet."

"It's up to you, love," he says. She grabs her bag from her desk and heads towards the door. Just before leaving the room she changes her mind and turns around.

"Cal?" she asks. "Yeah love," he says, looking up from his screen. "Do you," she starts, "do you think some things are meant to be?" she asks.

Cal gets up from his chair and walks over to her. "I think," he says, "we always have a choice. I think the phrase 'meant to be' only exists because people like to pretend that they don't. That way, they don't have to feel responsable for the consequenses of their actions. Why do you ask?"

"You know what, I don't even know," she says, shaking her head. "I just wondered. So you don't believe two people can be meant to end up together?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Like I said," he says, "I think we always have a choice. Even when we feel like we don't."

"Yeah," she says. She grabs the door handle. "I'm gonna be late," she says, "I should go."

"Okay," he says. "Just, take care of yourself, and all that, okay?"

She smiles. "I will," she promises. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he says. She closes the door behind her and walks away.

She arrives home at precisely five minutes before seven, but as she's getting out of her car she can see David already standing by the front door, holding a big paper bag of what appears to be some kind of take-out.

She quickly walks up to him, apologising for being late, eventhough she knows it's him who's early. "You know you really didn't have to bring the food," she says, pointing at the paper bag.

He smiles. "It's Indian," he says. "That still your favorite?" She can't fight a smile as a familair twinkle appears in his eyes. "Yeah," she says, opening the door and letting them in.

"Why don't you go into the livingroom, while I get us something to drink?" she offers while hanging up their coats. "Would you like a glass of wine?" she asks. "That would be great," David says, "thank you."

She goes to the kitchen and comes back just a few minutes later, holding a bottle of red wine and two glasses. David's already sitting on the couch and has taken several carton boxes of food out of the paper bag, putting them on the table.

"That looks good, Gill," he says, as she generously pours out wine into both glasses. She hands one to him before sitting down next to him on the couch and taking a big sip from her own glass.

"So," she says, after putting her glass down, "how was your day?" She feels ridiculous, talking to him like everything is normal, but she also doesn't really know what else to say.

David nods. "It was good," he says. "I found an apartment, nice, not too expensive. I can move in next week, so until then I'm staying at a hotel downtown. I also got a job interview for next week, as a psychologist at a mental health care institution."

"Well, congratulations!" she says. "I'm glad things are going well."

They sit together in awkward silence for a few minutes, neither one of them knowing exactly where to start a conversation with a person you haven't talked to for over two years.

"David, what's your plan?" she asks after a while. "I mean, are we just going to pick up where we left off two years ago? Pretend you never left? Are we gonna start all over again? What do you want?"

David carefully puts his hand on her knee. "I don't know," he says. "I guess we'll just figure things out as we go along. This," he grabs her hand and squeezes it, "us, it can be anything you want it to," he says.

He lets go of her hand again and wraps an arm around her shoulder. She gives into him and lies her head against his chest. It feels like old times, like the clock turned back over two years in time and David never left.

"If you hadn't left," she whispers, "where do you think we'd be right now?" she asks. She hears him sigh and feels his chest rise and fall. "I've thought about that so many times," he says.

"Maybe we'd be living together, maybe even talk about marriage and children," he says. "I don't know. I just hope we can still get there, someday."

She lies still against his chest and thinks about his words for a while. Cal may say everyone always has a choice, but you can't always choose the options you get. And if her only choice is between starting a family with a man who loves her, or staying alone for the rest of her life, that shouldn't be too hard of a decision to make, should it?

She moves so that she can look him in the eyes. "Okay," she says. "Okay what?" he asks. "Okay, I'll give you a second chance," she says.

A soft smile breaks through David's hardened facial features. He lays his hand on the side of her face and gently pulls it closer to his own. "I'll try to be worth it," he whispers before moving in to kiss her.

She goes to bed late that night, after David's gone back to his hotel. So tired she can barely keep her eyes open, she quickly falls off to a restless, stirring sleep.

She dreams she's stuck in a waterwell, screaming for help. She sees David's face above her, promising her he loves her and that he'll save her, but when he offers her his hand she can't reach it.

She keeps trying to grab his outstretched hand, but when she can't David disappears again and doesn't come back. She cries and begs for him to come back for her, but she doesn't see him again.

Then Cal's face appears in the opening above. She begs him to save her, but he doesn't. "We always have a choice," she hears him say the same words he said to her earlier that day. She cries out for his help again, but he just keeps repeating the same sentence, over and over again.

She's startled awake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and with tearstreaks on her face. "Just a dream," she whispers to herself.

She thinks about the things Cal said about always having choices. She's not entirely convinced about the truth behind those words. You don't have a choice in who you fall in love with. You don't have a choice in who falls in love with you.

She didn't have a choice when David left her, and she didn't have a choice in whether or not he came back. She never had a choice in the way her marriage with Alec ended, or when her daughter was taken away from her.

So many things in her life have been decided for her, and so few of them have made her happy. Fate rarely asked for her opinion on anything.

She wonders if she really does love David, or if maybe she just remembers loving him. If she really is in love with him, or simply with the idea of loving anyone, and having them love her back.

She wonders if, in the end, it really matters. For how could being with someone who loves you, even if you weren't really in love with them, be any worse than staying behind all alone?

Cal was wrong. Life doesn't give you choices, it gives you options. And right now, David's her best option to be happy.

The next day she arrives at the office almost as early as the day before. She wants to have a chance to talk to Cal before the normal affairs of the day have any chance to interfere.

She knocks on the door to his office before going in. "Hey," she says. Cal's sitting behind his desk, typing away at his laptop again. He looks up from the screen, a hint of surprise appearing on his face. "Hey, darling," he says. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she says. "Can we talk? I'd like to tell you something."

She's been up half the night wondering how and when to tell him, eventually deciding to just do it. Fast and without second thoughts, like ripping of a bandaid.

"Of course," he says, the frown in his eyebrows showing worry. They sit down next to each other on the couch in his office. He's sitting so that he faces her, putting his arm on the backrest behind her.

"What is it love?" he asks. She turns her face to look at him and takes a deep breath before talking. "David came back," she says. Rip goes the bandaid, quick and painful. The frown in his forehead deepens, but he doesn't say anything.

"He came to my house, two nights ago," she says. "He's back for good." She feels a blush spreading over her neck and cheeks. "He wants a second chance, and I'm… I'm gonna give it to him," she says determindedly.

"What are you thinking?" Cal asks. His voice is soft, a mere whisper, but she can hear the accusation in it. She swallows and bites her lip before answering. "This is my decision," she says, her voice trembling a little.

Cal jumps up from the couch and paces his office. She pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around her knees, watching him walk back and forth. "Have you completely forgotten," he suddenly yells, "how much that man hurt you?"

He's standing before her with a fury in his eyes that she knows comes only from a desperate feeling of powerlessness.

"Have you forgotten how long it took you to get over him when he left you?" he screams. "Cause I haven't. I'll never forget what a bloody mess he left you! I don't…"

"Stop," she interrupts him. "I haven't forgotten," she says. "I want to give him another chance."

"O, that's nice," Cal blurts out, "another chance, to what, burn you down again? To finish you off? Gill, you can't do this," he says.

"Well, that's not your call," she says. "And I am doing this." She looks into his eyes and, to her surprise, reads pain behind the obvious anger and despair.

He stares straight back at her. "I see," he says, calmer now. "Nothing I can do to stop you then." He walks back to his desk and sits down on the chair behind it.

She get's up and walks back to the door. "Gillian," Cal says, right before she walks out. She stops, but doesn't turn around to face him. "Are you in love with him?" he asks.

She walks out the room and closes the door behind her.


Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please do leave me a review, they really make me so happy. I hope to post chapter three soon, but no promises of when. I can, however, promise there will be a lot more Cal/Gillian in the next chapter, so there's that to look forward to.