A/N: This is a flashback chapter.

I made a quick mention of these earlier in the story, but wanted to bring it up again. This one takes place during the end of "Exposed," after Burns leaves but before the cafe scene. There will be at least 4 flashback chapters. I borrowed a few lines of dialogue from the episode - I don't claim to own those lines.

Thanks again for reading and for all the feedback & reviews - you all are great!


"I'll meet you back at your apartment, okay?"

She smiled warmly at him, so relieved that he was standing there in front of her, alive and mostly intact. She stretched up to kiss him, but somehow her lips landed at the corner of his mouth.

Dave raised right hand to touch her cheek, casting his eyes down and away before speaking. "I'll see you there." He'd already begun to walk away before the first words reached her ears.

She held his hand until the last possible second, when distance and momentum finally pulled it from her grasp. And she watched him until he rounded the corner of the room, feeling utterly sick as all the pieces started to fall into place. It was like some kind of delayed reaction… the scientist in her should have seen all the clues, but she'd ignored them all, hoping they weren't true. That this time, she'd gotten it wrong.

She took a handful of hesitant, stuttering steps out into the hallway, looking down the corridor after him. She heard Cal's footsteps approach from behind, just as tentative as hers had been, but she didn't look back. She couldn't.

Gillian's face morphed from confusion to sadness to resolve. Cal stood beside her now, as if he was just waiting for the moment when it hit her. "He doesn't want me to follow him," she said, speaking more to herself than anyone else. As if hearing those words aloud somehow confirmed them in her own mind.

"No," he muttered as she nodded along. "They're gonna move him. Change his name." Cal sounded as broken as she felt – and a part of her thought she saw a flash of something shift through his eyes… as if it hurt him to have to say those words to her.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say in that moment, but when she finally opened her mouth to speak, one short sentence summed it all up pretty well. "I liked the one he had."

It had taken everything she had not to cry then, but she couldn't. Not yet.

"Gillian, I…"

Cal's words were soft and tentative as he called to her, but she raised one hand to stop him. She didn't want to talk, and she didn't want to listen. Not to Cal, and not to anyone. It just hurt too much.

Her voice was broken when she finally spoke again. "Please," she warned. "Not yet." And then she walked away from him, without another word.


The text message came just as she walked through her front door. "I'm here if you need me."

Gillian frowned, pushed the phone back into her jacket pocket, and felt the tears welling up again. Of course she needed him, but she wasn't ready to admit it yet.

She dropped her bag on the floor just inside the doorway, not much caring where it landed. She tossed her keys on the counter and then looked around her empty apartment with a sigh. Darkness had already begun to fall, and the rooms were bathed in the low light of evening. She found it comforting, somehow. As if the shadows hid the emptiness she wasn't ready to face.

Not knowing what else to do, she padded upstairs to change clothes but brushed off the idea of a shower. She just didn't have the energy for it, and quite frankly, she didn't much care how she looked or how she smelled. There was no one else there to see her anyway.

She tossed her jacket across the end of the bed, and as soon as it hit the comforter, her phone buzzed again. "I just need to know you're alright. Please."

But she wasn't alright, and so she didn't reply.

She'd been so damned angry with Cal in that warehouse, watching him poke and prod at Dave as if he was any other mark and it was any other case. It was dangerous, and reckless, and he could have damn well gotten any one of them (if not all of them) killed. Cal hadn't much cared that she was scared shitless… he hadn't much cared about anything at all, other than the fact that he was right. That his methods were right. To hell with everything else.

It seemed ironic to her that he was the same man who'd showed no fear and no hesitation hours earlier, when guns were waving and emotions were high and any sane person would have completely crumbled under the weight of all that mess. He was more worried about her now than he'd ever been then… Dave had walked away without question, but Cal seemed hell bent on not letting her do the same thing.

It was endearing and infuriating, all at the same time.

She placed her phone on the edge of the dresser and changed into sweats – oversized and warm and comfortable. Warm and comfortable being two things she didn't know if she'd ever feel again. By the time she was finished, one more message flashed across the screen, simple and direct. "Talk to me, Gill."

But she couldn't. Because what was there to say, really? So she ignored it again, and wandered back downstairs.

Around the time her feet hit the bottom landing, it occurred to her that he was acting as aimless as she felt – random movements and random actions that had no real consequence at all. Breathing because she had to. Standing because she had to. But not really caring at all about what she did or what she said or what she felt, because everything seemed so fucking numb. Heavily, profoundly numb. She still hadn't let herself cry.

She sank into the corner of the sofa, curled into a tight little ball, and wrapped herself in the soft throw that was draped across the back of it. Seconds later, her phone buzzed again and she sighed in annoyance. Two short words lit up the display, but they spoke volumes. "Gillian? Please."

One single tear pricked the corner of her eye, and it made her angry. Irrationally angry, in such a way that she wanted to take it out on the closest target… just to do something. Have control over something when everything else felt like it was spiraling out from under her feet.

So she did the only thing she could do in that moment. On sheer impulse alone, she frowned at the screen and threw the phone across the room, watching as it landed on the carpet with a muffled thud. Her attempt had been halfhearted, though, and it landed display-up, not too many feet from where she sat. Seconds later, it buzzed again and she didn't know whether or laugh or to strangle him. "Jesus Christ, Cal!" she shouted into the darkness. "I get it, okay?"

And then without warning, just as her breathing returned to normal and the house felt so quiet around her that she wanted to scream, she finally started to cry.

It was just a few quiet tears at first, ones that she quickly wiped away on the back of her sleeve without much thought at all. Because she was fine, really. She would get through this… she would pick herself up, dust herself off, and move on. And as long as she kept telling herself that she was fine, she would be. Positive affirmation, or some other such psychological bullshit.

Didn't matter, really. It was all just another word for lies.

So she sat there, alone and lying to herself and feeling emotions swirl through her system like a damn tornado. Anger gave way to sadness, which morphed into regret.

And the more she self-analyzed, the harder the tears fell… until finally, hours later, they ran dry.

It was just after midnight when she finally knocked on his door. When it opened, she saw a myriad of emotions flicker across Cal's surprisingly unmasked face, just for a few seconds… and then everything became guarded once again. She didn't have the strength to try and read him, and she didn't have patience enough to care. He stepped backward, just a bit – allowing her enough space to step inside – and then his arms opened, wordlessly.

She hesitated only for a split second before falling against his chest. Her arms wound around him and she clutched against his shoulders, gripping tightly. She felt Cal smoothing small circles across her back, calming her. When she pulled back, his hands framed her face – his thumbs stroking against the smooth skin of her jaw. And then he spoke, somehow sensing the fear she hadn't yet been able to verbalize.

"You are not alone, Gillian."