Author's Note: My nephew, that awesome kid, smeared lotion all over my oldest cat, Kovu. I'm procrastinating, because I don't want to give her a bath, so I'm watching Luelle (the younger kitty) try to lick it off, wondering just what it tastes like to a cat. Chicken, probably. And, while doing that, I've finished this chapter. So, thank the nephew and the cats for the speedy update.
The rest of that day went by entirely way too fast for Ria's liking. That could have had something to do with how she kept getting lost in the past, but she was trying not to think about that.
"You've been a little off today. Are you alright?" Eli asked as Ria entered the lab, Dr. Foster following after a brief moment.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She smiled reassuringly. Knowing what emotions looked like made it easy for her to mask her own, when she wasn't plagued with memories from her past. When she could concentrate.
"I was thinking about grabbing some dinner, since we're about to head out. You should come with me." Loker said, watching her intently, pretending not to see Gillian doing the same thing.
Ria smiled again, softer this time. "I think I just want to go home, relax, and go to bed." Her voice was as soft as her smile.
"Okay." Loker shrugged. "Another time, then."
"Yeah, definitely." Ria said as she watched him walk out of the room, waving over his shoulder at them.
Gillian caught Ria's arm as she turned to leave as well.
"You don't need to be at home alone tonight, Ria."
Her eyes flashed, and she paused only a brief moment before retaliating the only way she knew how.
"I don't need a shrink." Torres spat the words over her shoulder as she turned to walk away. Fleeing, again.
"I'm not here to shrink you." Foster said, stepping in front of the younger woman, standing her ground.
"Then why are you here?" Ria asked, running her fingers through her hair.
"For you." Gillian answered, watching the struggle in Ria's eyes.
She closed her eyes before she could pretend to misread the look on Foster's face, and hoped briefly that the woman wouldn't be there when she opened them. But when she did, Foster hadn't moved, and was still studying her face.
"Fine." She exhaled in a rush. "Just stop doing that."
"Doing what?" Gillian asked innocently, following Ria out the door, but taking the lead on the way to her own car.
"The face thing." Ria replied, happy to disappear into the dark of Gillian's car. Ready for the reprieve of the Foster Eyes on her, however brief it would prove to be.
"Are you hungry?" Gillian asked as they walked through her front door, Ria first, who paused in the hallway, taking in the house.
"Well, come on." She said, placing her hand on Ria's lower back, leading her to the kitchen. Ria squirmed and moved away, sitting down at the kitchen table.
She put her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers and setting her chin on her hands, and watched as Gillian moved around. It wasn't long before the smell of reheating food permeated the room. Foster turned and leaned against the counter, her hands braced on either side of her hips.
"I hope you don't mind leftovers. Its all I really had." She smiled almost apologetically, and Ria smiled back, shaking her head slightly.
"No, its fine."
Foster made them both plates, sitting Ria's down in front of her, and taking her own across the table. They ate in companionable silence, Foster's eyes on Torres the entire time.
"What?" Ria asked, when she looked up for the third time to see Gillian watching her intently.
"Nothing," She answered, smiling slightly and standing. "Done?" She nodded towards Ria's plate.
"Oh, yeah." Ria stood and rinsed her plate under the faucet, placing it in the dishwasher. She followed Gillian's example and grabbed her drink off the table as they made their way into the sitting room.
Ria, who had never been to Gillian's house, took a moment to look at the books on the shelf before sitting on the end of the couch farthest from the chair Gillian had sat in.
Ria pulled her knees up in front of her and wrapped her arms around them as Gillian addressed her.
"Do you want to talk? Or do you want me to tell you what I see?" She asked.
"Your house is gorgeous." Ria answered.
"You're deflecting." Gillian retorted, grinning as Ria nodded.
"Yes. But it really is beautiful."
"Thank you." Gillian nodded, following Ria's eyes around the room.
"Plus, I thought it would go over better than asking you for some Vodka." She swirled the Coke in her glass around, smirking up at Gillian.
Gillian grinned back, standing and walking to the kitchen, coming back and setting a bottle of Vodka down on the table.
"Careful with this, Torres. Last time you got drunk you tried to shove your tongue down Cal's throat." She paused, then whispered dramatically, "In his shower."
Ria picked up the bottle of Vodka and poured a little into her glass, taking a lengthy sip before she replied.
"Don't worry, Foster. If I was going to put my tongue in your mouth, I would do it sober. Savor the moment."
After a moment, Ria's mouth popped open slightly. That obviously wasn't what she had planned to say.
"Is that right?" Gillian asked, raising one eyebrow and cocking her head slightly to the right, watching Ria's eyes intently.
"Yeah. It is. I'll show you one day." She replied, taking another drink before setting her glass on the table. "When I'm not drunk."
Ria wasn't exactly sure what she was doing, threatening to kiss one of her bosses while attempting to inebriate herself (just days after trying to sleep with her other boss while definitely intoxicated). But she was careful to keep her eyes off of Gillian, so as not to have to see the reaction she elicited.
In doing so, she missed what Loker insisted was the universal signal for 'I want you', and a dilation of Dr. Foster's pupils. Pity, really.
She did not, however, miss the wink that Foster gave her as she grabbed the Vodka bottle to return it to the kitchen. Nor did she fail to notice that when Foster sat back down, she did so on the couch just a few feet away from Ria.
"We were supposed to be talking about belts tonight." Gillian prodded.
"I'm so not drunk enough for this yet." Ria muttered, sighing and leaning back into the arm of the couch.
"How drunk do you have to be?" Gillian inquired, setting her drink down on the table.
"Drunk enough to try to seduce Lightman." Torres replied, finishing off her drink and setting it on the table as well.
Gillian's eyes flashed and the flicker of emotion that ran across her face wasn't something that Ria missed.
"I'm not drunk enough for that, either." She said softly.
"For what?" Foster asked, looking away briefly.
"Whatever it is that you're trying not to let me see."
The silence in the room was uncomfortable, but neither woman seemed willing to break it.
"Maybe if you just asked questions, I'd be able to answer them. I can't promise results, but I know you've got questions. They're swirling around in your eyes."
"Okay. First question. Why are you allowed to read me, but I'm not allowed to read you?"
"I didn't say you couldn't. I just asked you to stop with the face thing. We both know that speech patterns are more you're thing, anyway. And as for me, I can't turn it off. Because for me, the ability to read people is the difference between a bruised arm and a bruised trachea. A broken arm and a broken rib."
Gillian watched the ghost of nights passed sweep across Ria's face, and all she wanted to do was reach out and comfort the other woman. Girl, really. She was just so young. Especially now, with the faraway look in her eyes, a childlike pout on her lips, and the way she was reverting to present tense, as if the threat were in the here and now, not ten years ago. But something told Gillian that if she reached out for Ria right now, it wouldn't matter that she didn't have a belt in her hand, she would still do damage to the poor girl. So she kept her hands to herself and waited for Ria's eyes to clear before continuing with her questions.
"Do you want to tell me where you went just now?"
"Not really." Ria answered, her gaze fixed on something behind Gillian's head.
Gillian nodded and they lapsed into silence again, Ria fighting to stay in the present, and Gillian trying to find the courage to ask the questions that were 'swirling around in her eyes'. Except, asking wasn't the problem. It was listening to the answer that she was sure would prove hard. Knowing that just sitting in silence wasn't helping either of them, Gillian decided she would just have to delve right in.
"Do you react the same way to all belts? Or are specific ones worse?" She asked the question as if she were asking about the amount of peanut butter she liked on her sandwiches. Her thinking was that if she could make it seem less personal, maybe it would be easier on Ria.
Watching as the story played in Ria's mind, Gillian wasn't worried that she wouldn't get an answer. She knew it would take some time, though. But she had all the time it took. She had all the time in the world when it came to Ria.
"Black ones." Her voice was tight, and Gillian wasn't sure if she was concealing anger or trying not to cry. She thought better of asking, though, and just waited for Ria to go on.
"Thick, black, leather ones, with big silver buckles." The torment in Ria's eyes was enough to make Gillian wish she had never asked, had never started this in the first place. But she knew, on the same level, that if it hurt her this much, she needed to talk about it. But needing to, and being ready to, are two very different things, of which they both were well aware.
"We don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. We can watch a movie, or even just go to bed, if you would prefer." She knew Ria was too strong to say she couldn't do something, so Gillian was offering her a way out.
"I would definitely prefer bed. One that is blissfully not empty." She paused, seemingly surprised again at the audacity her mouth seemed to have found itself tonight. Gillian gave her a small smile, that flash in her eyes again, which Ria chose to ignore this time.
"But, I know that I need to do this. And if I'm going to, I'm going to do it now. Because if I stop, I may never be able to start again."
Gillian nodded, and waited for Ria to proceed down memory lane.
A/N: So, don't expect the next one this soon; it still needs a lot of work done. But, you should review anyway. :)