Thanks for reading and big thanks to GDA for proof reading! :)

Chapter 10

Aboard The Canadian

Gillian Foster was walking through the almost empty dining car when she spotted Cal sitting at a table alone, eating what looked like pasta with meat sauce and a bread roll.

It was good to see him, because seeing him here reminded her of the one bright spot in this god-awful mess. That she wasn't alone. No matter how impossible a problem they'd faced during their years at the Lightman Group, she knew she could handle it with him at her side.

"You really are starving."

"That flu or whatever that I had, was worse than a five-hour work-out at the gym."

"What would you know about five hour work-outs at the gym?"

He smirked. "You think I get this physique from sitting in an office all day, luv?"

"I do."

He pushed the plate and a spare silver fork in her direction. "You must be starving too. Have some."

Gillian pushed it back. She still felt queasy. Food was the last thing she wanted. "No, thanks."

"It's excellent. I talked to the VIA chef...apparently he trained at a four-star Michelin restaurant in France." He twirled a giant mouthful onto his fork and ate it hungrily. It was how he always ate. As if it was going to be his last meal for days. Like a camel storing up for a trek across the desert, Cal Lightman was incapable of savouring a meal.

Gillian eyed him. If he was making small talk with the chef it was because there was something else he was trying to push from his mind. She knew that he couldn't care less about fine dining and Michelin stars. "Have you seen Karl since you left my cabin?"

"Yeah," he mumbled with his mouth full.

"And?"

"I helped him check on some of the passengers. Most of the sick have recovered. They're stuck in their cabins and they're antsy. We told them that we have a couple of passengers whose symptoms haven't improved..."

"There's an understatement..."

"We went to check on Malin Fredriksen, the young Norwegian woman. She's in bad shape, Gill." He stopped shovelling food in his mouth and met her eyes. "She's hemorrhaging now. Nosebleeds. Heavy bruises and swelling all over her body. We can't control the fever and she's barely conscious."

Gillian swallowed. An image of Sarah Jensen's last moments flooded her mind again.

"Karl thinks she won't last another day unless we get her to a hospital and start attacking the symptoms."

"So why aren't we moving and getting these people to a hospital?"

"Because Karl told the authorities we're dealing with a viral hemorrhagic fever and now no one wants the Ebola Train anywhere near them."

It was the first time Gillian had heard anyone give this thing a name. It was a word that sent a chill up her spine. "Ebola?"

"Our good doctor doesn't think it's Ebola, but something similar."

"Cal, there's something else...I've been wanting to tell you but I haven't had the chance."

"What?" She had his undivided attention now.

"Earlier when I was walking by the cabins, I overheard Karl and his wife talking about Sarah's condition. They said some things that struck me as odd. That her symptoms were "impossible," that her fever "should have broken". How would they have known that?"

"Unless they knew exactly what she had." Cal finished for her.

"They also said something about her symptoms having nothing to do with R1H9."

"R1H9?" Cal asked. "What's that?"

"No idea."

"I've never heard any flu being referenced by those letters and numbers." Cal pulled out a pen from his pocket and wrote them down on a napkin.

"The way they talked about her... it made me think they were expecting one thing to happen and instead this thing morphed into something unexpected." Gillian stifled a yawn. "Or does that sound crazy?"

"No," Cal shook his head. "In fact, it would explain why I got the impression that Karl Bennett was hiding something the first time around, but not the second time...it would also explain why both him and his wife were immune to the first outbreak...but not the second." Cal stared at her. "What if...they not only knew what the first outbreak was, but they caused it?"

Gillian raised her hands. "Wait a minute...now you're just making assumptions that you have no evidence to back up with."

"The perfume bottle!"

"What?"

"That first night in the dining car. The doctor's wife walked around spraying that thing everywhere. A few hours later...boom! Flu outbreak. What kind of physician gets squeamish about the smell of food? I mean, you've talked to this woman. Was there anything to suggest she's as neurotic as that act would imply?"

Gillian thought back to the minimal interaction she had with Eleanor Bennett. The young woman had struck her as strong-willed and professional. "Maybe not...but that doesn't mean she made an entire train full of people sick!" She leaned in to him, whispering now as one of the VIA rail employees walked past them. "And for what possible reason? What could they have to gain from that?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe they were testing something."

Gillian looked at him sceptically. "That's a huge leap."

"I'd love to ask her about that perfume bottle," Cal shot back. "Would love to see her reaction to my questions."

"She's sick, Cal," Gillian pointed out.

"So, I should go see her before she gets even sicker, is that what you're saying?"

"No. That's not what I'm saying and you know it."

"There's something else too, isn't there?"

Gillian eyed him. She was starting to think he was far better at reading her than he admitted. There was something else. But it was almost as far-fetched as his theory that two American physicians were intentionally spreading a virus on a Canadian train.

"Come on, spit it out."

"I just get the sense that..."

"That what?"

"That they're not a couple. Karl and Eleanor."

This time Cal raised his brows. "How so?"

"It's a bunch of little things. That and...a gut feeling."

"Tell me the little things you caught," he prompted her.

"When he came to the cabin to get me, to tell me Eleanor was sick, he didn't call her "my wife". That would've been the natural verbiage to use, especially with someone he doesn't know very well, like me. Then when I went to see Eleanor just now, she asked me to have Karl come see her in case she's no longer lucid. As if she's afraid she'll say something she doesn't mean to."

"Like what?"

Gillian shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows?" She thought back to Cal's feverish musings. "People do say crazy things when they're delirious."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." She paused, smiling at the recollection before bringing her train of thought back to the two doctors. "The way she made her request. It was so detached and again, the verbiage...it was "Karl" not 'my husband'. Other times I'd watch their reactions around each other...and honestly, if they hadn't mentioned being married I'd have guessed they were colleagues. Not husband and wife. You and I are more..." Gillian stopped, her eyes meeting his as he waited for her next words.

His eyes too were glued to hers. "More what?"

"More...in tune," she finished, feeling her cheeks flush against her will. Hating that after all this time there were still moments like these when, out of nowhere and for reasons she wasn't quite willing to admit, he threw her emotions for a loop. "Than those two."

Cal sank back in his chair, rubbing his three-day old beard. "So I think they've made the entire train sick and you think their marriage is a fraud." His lips widened into a morbid smile. "God...for once, I hope we're both wrong. Horrifically wrong."

He stuffed another forkful of pasta into his mouth when Gillian saw Dr. Bennett running into the dining car towards them. There was a look of panic on his face. "Cal, Gillian, I need you...Bruce Ripley, the musician, he's hemorrhaging badly now..."

The knot in her stomach tightened. She wasn't ready for this. Wasn't ready to have another passenger die in front of her.

Cal noticed with one concerned glance in her direction. "I've got this one covered, luv."

"I could use both of you," Karl Bennett re-iterated.

Cal shot him a look that said it wasn't up for debate.

"Be careful, okay? No contact with bodily fluids," Gillian mouthed, for once grateful that he'd sensed her unease. That he didn't hesitate for a second.

She watched them walk down the dining car, knowing she should have felt like coward for not joining them. But all she felt was relief.

Later

When it was all over, Cal Lightman decided he needed a stiff drink. Or two or three.

And even that wouldn't do much to remove the image of the dying man from his mind.

If he thought the Norwegian woman he'd gone to see earlier looked bad, dying the Canadian musician quickly put things into perspective for him.

Bad was coughing up enough blood to fill a couple of cereal bowls.

Bad was when there was barely any skin left on the man's body that wasn't swollen and bruised.

Bad was a fever induced delirium that made the old man scream.

Bad was Dr. Bennett ordering them both to leave the cabin when there was nothing else they could do. Telling them that trying to help him wasn't worth the risk of infection.

Cal shuddered at the recollection. This was one thing he did not want to catch. He'd washed his hands afterwards until they were nearly raw, but he wasn't convinced it was enough.

He needed that drink. Badly.

Even more than that he needed to see her face.

Gillian and Emily had always been his reminders that the world hadn't gone completely mad. He knew that one glance into those blue eyes, eyes he could drown in if he'd let himself, would help erase the last half hour better than any one of those really stiff drinks he craved.

It was funny. Gillian Foster had been back in his life for less than two days. But already he was taking for granted that she'd be there, in moments like this, when he needed her.

That's how it had been, during their years at the Lightman Group. Other staff and shareholders had come and gone. But the two of them were a constant.

She was there at the end of the day. To share a drink with him after a rough case. To tell him he was a jerk when no one else had the guts to. To pick his brain and challenge his theories. To let him see her face light up when he told a lousy joke and remind him that sometimes the world was a ridiculously beautiful place.

He'd barely admit it to himself, much less anyone else. But the truth was, he missed her these last two years. Missed the way he felt when she was around.

The thought of having her back in his life again made him feel good. Made him realize he might be willing to do whatever it took to keep her there.

Cal walked back to the dining car thinking Gillian might still be there but he was wrong. Maybe she'd gone back to her cabin. Or gone to see Eleanor Bennett again.

Cal was walking between two cars when suddenly he felt chilled to the bone. Ice cold air was coming in from outside. He almost didn't see her standing next to an open door.

"Foster?" He stared at her, not sure what to make of her standing there in a short-sleeved shirt, oblivious to the cold. "What the hell are you doing?"

"It's so hot in there," she told him.

"No, it's not." He took her hand in his and pulled her away from the open door. "Come on, luv. You're going to freeze standing there."

Holding her hand in his made him realize something else. That it was hot to touch. He pressed the back of his hand against her cheek and that too radiated warmth.

He exhaled with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Seeing her was supposed to lift his spirits not crush them.

"How are you feeling, luv?"

She shook her head and he saw that she was struggling not to cry. Fear. Guilt. Sadness. Defeat. Pain. He caught glimpses of all of them in her face. "Not so good."

He put an arm around her. "Come on, let's go to your cabin. Make you comfortable."

He walked down the corridor with her, noticing only then how slow her movement was and how heavily she was breathing. Had he missed all that when they talked in the dining car what seemed like only moments ago?

He pulled down the bed in her cabin, pushed aside the blanket and then reached into his suitcase, pulling out his last clean black t-shirt. "This is my lucky one," he told her with a smile. "It's big and comfortable." He helped her out of her sticky clothes and into it and made her lie down. Made her swallow two pills from the bottle she'd used earlier for him, along with a glass full of water.

"So much for your superior immune system," he chided her. "I told you not to spend so much time with me. Told you I'd give it to you at some point."

"Cal..."

"However miserable you feel right now," he cut her off, not sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. "You're going to feel ten times worse over the next few hours. Then, just when you think you can't stand it anymore, all of a sudden you're going to feel better...and then you'll be so hungry you'll feel like you could eat a horse."

"Cal," she grabbed his hand this time, forcing him to listen. Her skin was so warm it scared him. "I don't think it's..."

"You're going to be fine," he cut her off a second time, unwilling to consider any other options.

"You should wear a mask," she said softly. Her voice sounded hoarse now. Exhausted.

"Gill, look at me," he said, serious, forcing her to focus. He'd lose her to the fever soon and he needed her to know this before then. Cal knew that if she was going to beat this, at the very least she had to believe she would. A strand of hair stuck to her forehead and he calmly and gently brushed it aside. "Have I ever lied to you?"

She looked at him with a lop-sided smile. "Yes. Often."

Cal chuckled. "About anything that mattered?"

Gillian was serious now, as her eyes met his. "No."

"Do you trust me?"

There was no hesitation. "Yes."

"Then trust me when I say you're going to be okay. I wouldn't lie about something like this." There was no room for doubt in the tone of his voice. "You know me better than that."

Her expression relaxed. Willing to believe him. "Okay."

Cal squeezed her hand. "Try and sleep, luv, and when you wake up I'll be here."

She closed her eyes, finally giving in to her exhaustion.

He wanted to stay but he didn't trust himself. Didn't want to risk her seeing through his act. He knew he was an exceptionally good liar. But if anyone could see through him, it was her.

Instead, Cal left the cabin and closed the door behind him.

It was only when he was outside in the corridor that he leaned against the wall, his knees finally giving in, as he sank down in a crouch, cupping his face in his hands.

He felt as though someone had yanked the ground out from under his feet and he was starting a freefall.