January 13th, 1982

There were few things worse than a hangover. Knowing you deserved it was definitely worse, Cal thought as he dragged himself out of the lower level half-bath after over half an hour of vomiting, followed by dry-heaves. He thought his stomach was back under control, but the throbbing of his temples and roiling of his guts did not give him confidence.

He made his way back to the couch and collapsed, looking up at the clock and wondering where everyone was. It was Saturday morning... but the house appeared to be empty.

Miss Whiskers padded across the carpet and looked up at him with a soft miarrow. "Don't expect food from me," Cal mumbled as he rolled over and buried his face in a throw pillow. The very idea of food, even cat food, made him feel even more nauseated. This is pathetic.

"She's already eaten," Gloria's voice came from the stairs.

Cal peeked out just enough to see her cross into his field of view holding an empty laundry basket as she headed to the little laundry room. "Where's Charlie?" he asked, not wanting to ask about Alyse. She hadn't woken him. She hadn't even said good morning, but he was pretty sure she wasn't in the house. It was just too quiet.

"Out with Mom," Gloria replied. "Something about taking him to see a psychologist."

"For what?" Cal sat up abruptly, and immediately wished he hadn't. "Stealing a smoke? Isn't that overkill?" Pain blossomed in his head and he nearly doubled over.

"Not just that," Gloria replied, though she didn't look impressed. "But yeah, she thinks maybe he might do better talking to someone outside the family about stuff."

"And you agree with this?" Cal asked dubiously.

"Yes, I do," Gloria replied, turning to face him directly, one hand on her hip, the other still on the basket. In even her home outfit of purple loose fitting workout pants, and a white tank top, her curls piled carelessly on her head, she looked far more grown up than child. The pose only accentuated that fact. "But Mom said you wouldn't like it."

"And Charlie agreed to go?"

"Yes, he did. They're also out getting him some new shirts and other clothes, so they probably won't be home until dinner."

"And naturally no one felt the need to tell me this," Cal grumbled as he leaned his head back, willing his body to behave even though he knew it was futile.

"You were passed out," Gloria pointed out with surprising lack of mercy. In fact, she was frowning. "You know, you really upset Mom last night."

Cal froze. "How do you know?"

Gloria's expression turned from a frown to a straight up glower. "Well, I'm not deaf. I heard everything you said last night. You woke me up. That, and she was worried about you all evening. She kept looking at the phone, and pacing, and she even messed up helping Charlie with questions about his math homework twice. She was still sitting down here when we went to bed." She looked at Cal as if she expected him to say something, but he was a little too startled that she was starting this conversation to respond. When he didn't she went on. "And Charlie's all confused, cause he doesn't understand why Mom is mad at you for the stuff he's been doing. And he's scared, and frankly I'm... I'm just baffled."

That was not the word Cal had expected. "Baffled?"

"I had no idea you smoked… ever." Gloria's eyes were accusing, but Cal could see hurt behind them. "And I never thought you'd talk to Mom that way. It was awful. I'm not saying she was nice back but... you're a really lousy drunk. I hope you know that." At the last she looked away briefly, the firm tone wavering… the voice more that of an unsure girl than the woman she was on the verge of becoming.

Cal refrained from asking how she knew enough to compare. "I'm sorry," he replied instead.

"Are you?" she asked, though there was no sarcasm in it. "I think you deserve to feel like crud this morning." With that she turned and vanished into the other room.

Cal didn't have the energy, or the will, to fight with his daughter. He closed his eyes and lay there, back against the couch back, and waited for the roiling of his insides to subside. Around him he heard Gloria go about the morning. Footsteps went upstairs and came down. There was clattering in the kitchen, then the whistle of the teapot.

The next thing he was consciously aware of was a clink on the coffee table, and when he opened his eyes he saw a cup of tea and a plate of plain toast. Cal looked up at Gloria, who looked uncertain. She straightened up. "You should eat something," was all she said.

"Thanks, sweetie," Cal reached out and picked up the plate.

"Are you really that mad at Mom?"

Mid-bite, Cal had to chew and swallow. It was an odd realization as he thought back and couldn't remember the last time he and Alyse had actually fought like this. Sure they quibbled from time to time, and disagreed, but a shouting match? He didn't think they'd had one of those since the kids were tiny, if then. He'd spent a lot of time doing his best to be reasonable and work disagreements out peaceably... because there were kids in the house. "Yes, I am," he admitted honestly. "But that doesn't mean I don't love her. We just... disagree on some things." Apparently far more strongly than he had realized. Or else he had forgotten.

"Then apologize when they get home." Gloria looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn't. At least not on that subject. "You might want to shower first. You smell like vomit."

Cal offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile, however weak and barely felt it was. "Thanks for the warning."


"What do you mean you're going to Creta?"

Here we go again.
"It's a great mission," Cal explained, irritated that after all her talk about work that was good for his career, or good for promotion, she was upset by this. He had hoped it would make her happy. "And Rehnquist wants me on it. We've talked about this." Last night. His head was still pounding.

"So you haven't changed your mind." Alyse asked, still standing in the living room next to where she had dropped the shopping bags at the top of the stairs. Charlie had taken his things upstairs to put them away. Cal noticed that Gloria was notably absent from the room as well. "You'll miss Gloria's dance club bake sale."

"I know that," Cal replied, biting his tongue to keep from snapping. His head hurt less than it had that morning, but it had been a very long, unpleasant day spent recovering. "I didn't say I liked it, but this is work. I thought you wanted me to take on more prestigious work?"

"I didn't say I wanted you to leave the country for a month," Alyse replied with a patient, if not pleased, tone.

"Well I haven't had an out of town mission in two years," Cal reminded her. Calm, keep it calm. And the last had been to a small town less than two hours from Central. Outside of trips to Resembool, Cal couldn't remember the last time he'd gone on a trip somewhere that wasn't a short one or two night jaunt on duty. Certainly it had been that long since he'd had a personal trip with Alyse, just for pleasure. "And then it was another two before that. There will be overtime pay on this one too, which will be enough to cover Gloria's additional dance classes she wants to take."

All reasonable. Cal could see Alyse's mind turning, almost trying to find something else to gripe about. Finally, she sighed. "Well, I suppose there's nothing to do about it now, but I wish you'd talked to me before you agreed. It's going to make getting everyone where they need to go a bit of a challenge."

"You'll manage," Cal replied. "You're good at that kind of thing."

For some reason, that comment earned him a funny look. Then Alyse turned and picked up her shopping bags. "I'm making Aerugean tacos for dinner. Do you think your stomach can take it?"

"Tacos will be fine." Cal watched her with an odd feeling that a question had been dodged, and an argument had without him in Alyse's head. But at least she wasn't shouting now. Given the way his family had been responding to him the last couple of days, he was beginning to think it would be good for all of them if he got away for a while, and everyone had a chance to cool off.

January 17th, 1972

Cal's first night gone was an odd one for Alyse. It had been so long since she had had an evening without him around, and it happened to be one of the few where she didn't have something else going on. Gloria was over at a friend's house studying for an Amestrian History test. She had given Charlie permission to go study at his friend Gill's house, but only because Gill's mother had come and picked him up, and was a very strict pre-school teacher, who Alyse knew would keep close watch over the boys. Gill was one of Charlie's few friends who was pretty much never in trouble, and always got good grades.

So Alyse found herself alone at home, with no one to cook dinner for. Cal wasn't just coming home late, he wasn't coming home. And it just felt wrong. Even with as much as they had been fighting lately. A fact that gave her an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. What had happened? She was still trying to figure it out. And the few things Cal had given her as clues did not reassure her.

No, Alyse had in no way forgotten who it was she had married; the passionate rogue she had fallen in love with, despite his checkered past. She loved Cal, and still did, but he had changed over the past fifteen years, and not in any way that worried her until now. She had been thrilled and relieved when he took the desk job in Central, and stopped being sent out regularly on dangerous missions. He was home for her, for their young children, and he had done everything she ever could have asked of a husband. He came home from work. He attended his daughter's performances and changed diapers. He helped with feedings; took the kids to the park, or the movies, or shopping for clothes with her.

He had cleaned up his act, so to speak, and accepted the accolades and promotion that came with years of good work. He almost never drank, and he was a model father and husband. Nothing that might mar the happiness they had spent years building.

It was perfect as far as Alyse was concerned. She'd never expected that her children would never get in trouble, or be good at everything. That just wasn't realistic. She never assumed Cal would be home on time every night. Military duty didn't work that way. But it was everything she had ever wanted for herself, for her family, and so that was all she needed.

She had thought that Cal's gradual shift had just been the natural outcome of getting married, having a family, and getting used to not living as a single bachelor. She had thought it had been willing...

But what if she was wrong? It certainly seemed that way, she thought, as she sipped a cup of tea and nibbled at a salad she made for herself. It was the only real explanation she had for his outbursts and his anger. She hadn't been sure what to make of the discovery that he still had cigarettes in his sock drawer. Even if he claimed they'd just been there, forgotten, for several years, he'd told her over a decade ago that he'd quit. So why were they there at all? She hadn't meant to lose her temper as much as she had over it, but to have her baby -however much of a scamp Charlie was- get into them had struck a chord inside her she had never expected to feel. There were so many things about Charlie that were just like Cal... but in her son they drove her crazy, where they hadn't in the adult version. But the adult had been a child too, and she had known all about Cal's misfit childhood, as much as she had known about his years before they got together. He'd never hidden who he was from her. On the contrary, Cal had done his best to make it very clear...

And Alyse loved him anyway. That was part of why she had decided that Charlie should see a counselor. If he didn't feel comfortable talking to her or Cal about things, maybe someone else could reason out of him why he was always acting up. It wasn't like he didn't get attention at home, or love, or get to do things he enjoyed. He wasn't hateful or angry most of the time.

Charlie's behavior had always been a source of aggravation for Cal, and Alyse knew why. Cal and his father had hated each other. They had never gotten along, and Cal had told her well before they had kids that one of his fears was that if he had a son it would be a repeat of the same situation. Alyse had laughed it off at the time, but she could see why Charlie would cause her husband as much internal conflict as familial.

She finished dinner and went upstairs to fold the laundry, still mulling the situation over in her mind. Cal didn't want Charlie to be like him, but Charlie was just like him in so many ways. Perhaps it was no real surprise that they weren't communicating well at the moment. Both father and son needed a break.

Alyse just didn't like the idea that Cal felt maybe they needed a bit of a break too. Why else would he have accepted a month long mission to Creta? Why would he keep going out? Why else would he come home drunk? Maybe he really had had it with the way things were. Maybe he hadn't changed willingly, but just because it was what she wanted.

Maybe... she was being too hard on him. She had been, she had to admit to herself, more patient with him in the early days; with his faults, his quirks, his insecurities. They just hadn't all gone away like she thought, like he had been pretending.

Alyse pulled out his uniform pants and started with those, ironing and folding them neatly. They hadn't changed much over the years, since the uniforms rarely did. The rest of his clothes were another story; slacks and general pants, comfortable, well fitting, respectable clothes meant to be worn to dinner, to PTA meetings, shopping at the mall. Of course, her clothes hadn't changed much either; still conservatively stylish, but classically fashionable. Good for work, or parenting, or just about anything she needed to do. An officer's wife always needed to look the part, and she liked that look.

Maybe... Cal was bored.

That thought hurt worse, in some ways, than the others, because it was more personal. Forget the rest of the life they had built, what if he was tired of her? Tired of the routine, the security... them.

She had to admit that, when she got past her own insecurities, she couldn't really believe that Cal would cheat on her. If there was one worry she didn't have, that was it. Even if he did look. But that didn't mean he was happy. Come to think of it, how happy was she? Alyse would never have answered that question with unhappy, but what if she phrased it more as a question of contentment? Or particularly in the level of excitement or passion that she remembered from the early years of their relationship. While there was something comforting and secure in what they had now, it wasn't the same thing.

She knew he wasn't unhappy with her physical appearance. He always complimented her when she wore something new, or even a classic favorite. He never failed to tell her she was beautiful, and while she was almost forty-five, she didn't look it. She had aged, thankfully, the way the women in her family seemed to, which was to say slowly and gracefully. Given how much care she took with hygiene and personal fitness, she had hoped so! There wasn't even a hint of gray in her hair yet.

Cal on the other hand, could not be mistaken for thirty. Not that he was aging badly. Far to the contrary. Alyse thought he looked like some of the middle-aged and older men they got for roles in the movies. Ruggedly handsome, but clearly they had lived life, and life had not always been easy. Alyse gave little thought to the lack of tight jeans in her husband's closet, or the gray streaking his hair. She liked the gray. She didn't mind that he didn't look like a body builder; he was still healthy.

Cal on the other hand, had begun to grumble in the mornings. He didn't like aging, not that that was any surprise. But Alyse hadn't thought too much of it. Everyone grumbled about getting older. But then, he had been bothered for days by Gloria's informing him that he wasn't considered 'cool.' A story she had also heard in morning grumbles as Cal shaved and hurried off to work. Alyse had never really worried about cool, she had just always been someone people liked and she was aware of that without concerning herself too much with it. Cal had spent most of his life the rebel, the loner... Alyse wouldn't have thought he would have cared if his daughter's friends thought he was cool, but maybe that was part of what he'd always wanted to be as a parent. It was certainly the opposite of his own father.

The more she thought, the guiltier Alyse felt. The idea that she had missed just how deeply Cal was disturbed by these things... that he had hid it from her... that he wasn't nearly as happy with how things were as she was. She wanted to talk to him, but now he was completely out of reach, possibly for most of the month, and she couldn't reach the train to talk to him. Theoretically he would call from the hotel and give her a number, but what if he didn't? After all their fighting lately, he might not want to talk.

Given how much his past had hurt him... the idea she might have done the same only deepened her sense of guilt. When he got home, they definitely needed to talk.