Chapter 3
It was already five o clock, so he just popped his head in with Loker and Torres to say he was leaving. The way they looked at him, he must have been showing on the outside at least a fraction of what he felt on the inside. But they didn't push, and he fled.
He wandered aimlessly, putting as much distance between him and her as he could, while at the same time being unable to get her last look out of his mind. He felt lost. Everything he knew about her was a lie, and he couldn't bring himself to get over that.
In his wanderings, he came across a park a few blocks from the Convention Center. Needing the quiet, and feeling exhausted, he took the path winding through greenery, and finally laid down in the grass under a tree. There he stayed, mulling over everything. He could hear a bird singing and, further away, cars passing by. There he stayed, for how long he did not know. The light went down, and he was still there. But in this small square of silence, he made up his mind.
There was no way he could go back to the how they were before, and no way he could work with her anymore as they were. So, he'd just have to buy her back. He'd take a loan, send clients her way to help her set up her own practice if need be. But it was better to make a clean cut. He couldn't bear to see what they had had dying slowly in front of him, every day becoming a more distant shadow of their friendship and trust.
Having made his decision, he got up and walked slowly back to the Office. Em was with her mother, and he couldn't face being alone at home tonight. He'd much rather be working, postponing his grief for another time, refusing to mourn. He'd meet with her first thing in the morning, and he could put this whole part of his life behind him. He could lick his wounds, then.
Everyone was gone, of course. He was walking by her office on his way to his, assuming she had gone home too, when he saw her, in the half dark of the summer evening. She was in exactly the same position he'd left her several hours before, sitting very straight on her couch. Her hands were in her lap, trembling slightly. Tears were overflowing from her eyes, running slowly down her cheeks, without her making any move to wipe them away. She didn't seem to be aware she was crying. He watched her from the door for a while, his resolve crumbling and falling around him like chunks of cement, the one he'd been covering his heart with for the past few days. She was still his Gillian. His Foster. She had never been someone else, she had just tried to protect him from his own stubbornness, and he was putting her through hell.
He saw the moment she became aware of his presence. Her hands clutched each other to stop them from trembling and she became absolutely still, angling her head the slightest bit away from him so that he wouldn't see her tears. Even now, she was giving him a way out, in case he hadn't meant to find her there, which he hadn't, and didn't want to see her, which he did.
(Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews! I love to know what you think! 2 more chapter, guys, and this should be done... :) )
