Just a quick note to say thank you for all your reviews and adding the story to your favourites. Now I know the show has been to say the very least horrible to fans of EC and it's put the beginning of my story into a new perspective for me. I don't know about everyone else, but seeing either of these two with someone else is just so upsetting, because we all know they belong together if only they'd communicate with each other. The show is giving us a big fat zero, so I'm hoping this story will cheer you up, although I have to admit this chapter is a bit of a filler, but a very neccessary filler. So as always please read and review, right now fan fiction is all we have with this couple.
Calleigh was alone in her kitchen, the afternoon sunshine flooding through the large patio doors that were situated by her dining table that she now sat at. Alexx had left her a few hours ago with the promise that she was all but a phone call away if she was needed. She'd come in here to make herself a cup of coffee to steady herself and she now had to route around frantically in several boxes before retrieving her coffee maker safely. She set it upon the countertop and busied herself with the various buttons before she perfected it to how she liked it, making sure to top it up with the necessary ingredients and put her favourite mug in place as she went. She decided upon a cappuccino and watched as the milk and coffee slowly trickled in. She had always preferred cafe Cubano, but it never tasted the way Eric made it no matter how hard she tried. This machine was quick and easy, but how she missed the coffee that Eric made, sometimes things are worth that extra effort. Despite all this time apart she still remembered all the little things that she loved about him. Coffee made, she came back to sit down and place a call to Aidan. She wasn't able to get through to him; she assumed he was probably busy with his parents, so she left him a voicemail asking him to come to her house alone at the earliest opportunity as she needed to talk to him.
Thirty minutes had passed, her cell phone still discarded on the table in front of her and coffee drunk and still no word or sign of Aidan. She wanted to busy herself in order to make these minutes tick by faster. She considered retrieving one of her beloved guns from her gun safe and meticulously cleaning it, it was something she liked to do to de-stress herself sometimes. However she'd done all of them on one of her recent sleepless nights and they hadn't been used since, so she turned her thoughts to something more useful to do with her time. Her mind went to the numerous boxes stacked up around her home, she wouldn't be moving now and luckily she hadn't put her home on the rental market yet so there weren't going to be any disgruntled tenants to deal with. She'd wanted to wait until she came back from honeymoon to start the process and she was now very thankful for that fact. Immediately her mind went to her other material possession she loved that she could unpack; her shoe collection.
Another thirty minutes or so passed and Calleigh was almost knee deep in stilettos, wedges and the odd pair of ballet pumps in the confines of her closet wanting to get their order on her shoe racks just so, like it was before they had been packed away. She heard a tell tale click of a key in her door, even though she was so far away from her front door. Years of being a CSI had fine tuned her senses and made her adept at noticing even the slightest thing. She placed a treasured pair of designer stilettos, a surprise gift from Eric a few years previously, onto the shoe rack in prized position before dusting herself down and proceeding to head downstairs. Reaching the penultimate step down she looked up and noticed Aidan standing adjacent to the couch.
"Hey" was the one opening line Calleigh was able to communicate leaning on the end post of the banister as she left the staircase and walked towards him slowly.
"Well hello to you too, thought I wouldn't see you again until tonight, what happened to yours and Alexx's girl's day?" He waited for a response, but there wasn't one.
"I came as soon as I could; there was insane traffic around the airport, then of course my mom insisted on me taking her the long route home so she could see all the sights." He pressed a small kiss to her forehead as she met him by the couch; she took his hands in hers and as they both sat down to face each other.
She took a small steadying breath, taking her gaze up to look into his eyes, he clutched her hands tighter to try to reassure her, sensing some sort of worry that had built in her.
As he did so she looked down into her lap again unable to begin, afraid of the consequences as to what she now needed to tell him.
He took one his hands and extended the index finger on it, placing it on the underside of her chin and using it to bring her eyes back to his, before returning them to the comforting clasp he held with Calleigh's hands.
"Calleigh come on, what's happened? Something with your dad?"
"No, no...Not my dad" she said shaking her head.
"Is everything ok for tomorrow? The minister hasn't pulled out or something? Are you getting cold feet sweetheart? It's OK if you're it is completely normal." He was racking his brain as to what could be upsetting her.
She opened her mouth slightly to try to talk, she couldn't, she was about to tell the man she was engaged to that she still loved her ex-boyfriend and couldn't marry him. Not only disappointing him, but his children too. She just wanted someone to do it for her so she wouldn't have to deal with it, which was something she would have done before. That was the old Calleigh and she both wanted and needed to change if she was going to pursue what she really wanted in life, what truly made her happy. Not the life she had carefully constructed these last six months that sheltered her from taking any risks with her heart and although it'd been good it couldn't be what she genuinely wanted if she still held on steadfastly to the vestiges of her past.
It had to be now or never, she couldn't do this to Aidan anymore, she'd broken Eric's heart when she wasn't honest with him about why she ended their relationship. She'd been running scared from Eric and the seriousness of their relationship. She couldn't be dishonest to Aidan about her feelings; she could not do that to another man. He didn't deserve it, neither of them did. She took another breath, deeper this time in order to begin.
"It's not cold feet; it's much more serious than that. I...I'm sorry, but I can't marry you Aidan." Calleigh started, her heart heavy.
"Calleigh the wedding's tomorrow, how can you do this to me now?" Aidan replied a look of shock painted upon his face. His tone became less understanding, somewhat harsh; he couldn't quite comprehend what she was saying to him. Either that or he just didn't want to hear it.
"Aidan please just listen to me." At this moment she caught his eye line, searching for a silent understanding that she needed to be heard, which he granted. "These last six months have been good and you've taught me a lot of things about myself. I now know what I want from my life and that's mostly because you've let me into your family and allowed me to know what it's like to be part of one. I've loved spending time with you and your children; it's been invaluable to me and I can't thank you enough for that. I've learnt how to trust people again and be open to letting new people into my life; you know how hurt I've been by my past relationships due to trust issues. However Aidan, you deserve to marry somebody who's going to love you with their whole heart and I can't, I'm so sorry. I hurt someone I loved before by not being honest with them and I can't do the same to you. You deserve better than that and I hope you find someone who can love you like you deserve, you have so much to give to somebody and I know you will find her." She said caringly, a solitary tear ran down one of her cheeks, as she contemplated the pain she had caused him.
Aidan just sat there in silence as Calleigh unclasped her hands from his; she then used her right hand to remove her engagement ring from her ring finger. Calleigh took one of Aidan's hands into hers and placed the ring in it, sealing his fingers around it so it was secure in his grasp.
"I'm so sorry Aidan" she ran her hand along his shoulder and down to his elbow to convey her need to comfort him for any pain she'd caused to him. She stood up as if to retreat from the situation, he gently clasped at her left hand from his seated position, as she moved away.
"Calleigh, I need to know this person that you loved, are you telling me you still love him?" he asked very matter of factly. He caught her eyes with his seeking the truth, noticing the tears that were building up in her eyes, but refusing to fall. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms and comfort her; take away her pain and anguish, but it was no longer his place to do so. Although he loved her with all his heart, she didn't feel the same way about him and he wasn't a big enough fool to believe he could change that.
"Yes...I am" she uttered to him, not wanting her words to sound harsh to his ears.
"It's Eric isn't it?" he asked, it had finally clicked in his mind as to why she was doing this. Eric had always been in the background looming somehow over their relationship. He thought this had been quashed when she agreed to marry him, but now he realised that hadn't been the case.
Calleigh nodded.
"We never really stood a chance as long as he was still in your life somehow. I should have known, I'm sorry." Aidan stood up, tucking the engagement ring into his shirt pocket. He reached out to hold both her hands in his hands; he leant in to her and pressed a light kiss to her forehead.
"Be happy Calleigh" he whispered into her ear. He broke his hands away from hers and he then walked to the front door. He turned back to give her one last smile, it was a smile of resignation and acceptance; she smiled back softly losing the fight with the tears that had welled up in her eyes. She mouthed back 'thank you' to him as she watched him leaving her home for good.
Deep down he'd known, he'd always had known, even if she never conveyed it directly to him. He knew because he'd caught her looking at Eric with nothing but love in her heart when she thought no one was looking. Her steely resolve was a carefully constructed facade, which only those who knew her best could see through. He had noticed on occasion how the corners of her mouth had curved into a smile whenever she had had to dial his number for work or when she'd invited him to the rehearsal dinner. She wasn't all joy and smiles around Eric, always trying to be professional around him, but every so often her mask had cracked and Aidan had picked up on it. If he was honest with himself he was surprised they'd gotten this far. Her heart had remained with Eric the whole time and he was foolish to not acknowledge it would only be a matter of time before she would realise it for herself.
She let the tears fall as she sat on the couch for a few moments realising the gravity of what she had just done. She rested her head in her hands, before she ran her hands through her hair, moving it from the curtain it had cascaded into about her face and she made the decision to get up. Calleigh now realised there was only one place she needed to be. She went upstairs to the bathroom sink and used the cool clean water to wash her face clean. She then went back downstairs grabbed her car keys and purse, slipped on her favourite red leather jacket and headed out the door. She hoped to God that Eric would listen to her and that he would be willing to give them another chance.