He had let her drive him home; Emily had decided to continue the festivities with her new boyfriend: a fact that had equally irked Cal as it had amused Gillian. As they had walked together out of the door, she had thought, and not for the first time, "To be young and in love..."

She had dropped him off and had tried, with every inch of her self-restraint, not to ask him if she could come in for a little while. She hadn't wanted to give up the warmth with which he had subtly encompassed her heart; she was equally reluctant to go to a home that held as much for her as a night, alone, watching the sparkling lights on her tree transform into a symbol of loneliness.

As she gripped the steering wheel, her fingers turning a whiter shade of pale as her grip tightened, she reluctantly pulled away from the curb.

Finally turning into her driveway, she switched the engine off and sat, idly wondering if it really would have changed everything if she had followed him inside. She doubted it, they had surpassed too many moments when their eyes had said far more than their mouths and they had almost crossed the mutually imposed boundary. Tonight was a case in point. A second more in his arms and she would have never left but he, being the one of reason and logic, had pulled back, brushing her cheek one last time with the pad of his thumb before reaching for his coat and, by all means and purposes, shutting down anything further.

Reaching for her bag, she emerged into the frosty air, shivering slightly at the blast of wind. Entering her hall, she sighed loudly, her shoulders sagging with the weight of tension she had been carrying around these past few days. She removed her coat, hanging it unseeingly on the coat-stand, making her way towards the glass of wine that had been calling to her all day.

As she moved towards the kitchen, she heard a knock at the door, soft yet assertive and knew instinctively that he was standing on the other side. She tried, yet dismally failed, to quell the sudden fluttering in her stomach. It's only Cal! She paused, hoping that the blush in her cheeks would only be representative of the chill in the night air. Although she knew that she would be powerless to hide the other signs of her eager happiness at his presence.

Slowly unlocking the door, her fingers trembling slightly, she wrapped a protective arm across her chest wishing to hide as much as she could from his perceptive gaze.

"Hey love"

"Hey"

"Would you mind if I come in? Thought you could do with the company"

Every instinct within her knew that her need for company was far from what had brought him to her door; he may be the detection expert but she was far from ignorant of the subtle expressions of the human soul. Yet, she chose to ignore his life, not wishing to call him on his reasoning; it was enough that he was here, the sight of him already re-lighting the flame that had been sparked earlier in his office.

She stepped back, far enough that he could move into her home but not far enough that his arm didn't briefly brush against her thigh. She hoped she was still breathing but she didn't know anymore, she was too focused on not reaching towards him and seeking the solace of his embrace.

"I was just about to get a glass on wine, would you like one?"

"I might fall asleep in the middle of drinking it but go ahead, it won't kill me"

***

There had been small talk, going over the events of the past couple of days, Emily's reaction to the location of her father, the air bombardment; there had been silences where the crackling of the lit fire was the only noise, each of them slowly making their way to the bottom of a bottle of wine; there had been moments when he had reached towards the table or the back of the couch and his fingers had lightly traced patterns on her arm or her leg, each stroke creating ripples within her chest.

She had always been amazed at the comfort that she had felt in his company, it had been that way since their first meeting. She didn't think there was anyone else that the comfort had come this easily.

Close to the bottom of the bottle and she noticed Cal's eyes beginning to show the signs of his tiredness.

"Cal..." she said, a little above a whisper, "why don't you just stay here tonight? I've got the extra set of bed clothes that we can throw onto the couch. There's no point in you going home, you're close enough to being asleep as you are now"

He looked up at her then, his slouched position on the couch causing him to be significantly lower than her eye line. "I think that might be a plan."

She made to move, putting her glass on the table and pushing her arms on the couch to gain leverage in her movement. And then he grabbed her wrist, brushing his thumb against her pulse, making her breath stick in her throat.

"Gill...I meant what I said earlier, I really did miss you"

"I know, Cal, I missed you too. I didn't have anybody to shout at these past few days" she smirked, hoping the humour carried in her gaze.

"I...I didn't come over here tonight to keep you company, I know you don't need anybody to make you feel better, you've been doing it long enough yourself without needing anyone...especially me" he pulled her wrist up to his mouth, placing his lips gently against her skin. "I just needed you to know that you mean a lot to me, love. You may not need me but I bloody need you" he made a noise that sounded like a laugh but Gillian could see the tears in his eyes, read the sincerity in them.

"C'mere" she held out her arms, waiting for him to enter her embrace. Yet, he hesitated and she realised that for Cal, declaring any kind of weakness must have taken him a lot. It wasn't often that he admitted his reliance on another. So she moved towards him, placing her arms gently around his shoulders and then firmly grasping his jumper in her grip, wishing to close as much of the distance between them as she could.

Turning her head towards his neck, she once again, as she had earlier in the evening, placed her lips against the soft skin next to his ear, seeking comfort in his warmth.

He made to pull back and, in her hesitancy to lose his hold, unconsciously made a noise of protest. But when he reached for her cheeks, looking into her eyes in a way that mirrored all that he had never said, she realised that instead of moving away from her, he was carefully toe-ing the boundary that had long existed between them.

And then, his lips were on hers and it took her a couple of seconds to realise that she should be responding in some way. But this was Cal Lightman and they were sitting in her living room, only a second before doing things that friends do. This was far from friendship.

But she didn't care, his lips were too soft for her to analyse what this meant, too soft for her to even care anymore. So she opened her mouth further, allowing his tongue access. She returned everything he gave in kind, making a memory of the moment as it happened; she didn't want to forget one thing about Cal kissing her. She had thought about it too often to let it pass her by.

And then he pulled her further into his lap and coherent thought became a thing of the past; a thing for mere mortals to worry over. All she could focus on was him, the way he tasted and the way he felt against her chest. And, in that moment, that was all she wished to care about.

***