Disclaimer: I do not own Lie to Me or any of the characters in this story.
A nice long one for you :)
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Gill considered Cal's reaction, not trying to read him, but just studying his face carefully. After some time she nodded. "Okay," she agreed. "That's fair." She wasn't overly happy about it, but she was willing to accept that sometimes one of them had to give in. Cal had been doing a lot of that lately and it was her turn to concede- it wasn't like he as asking her to do something awful, it was something he was doing with good intentions.
"Cal..." Gill said hesitantly. "Does that mean all this time you thought we were trying to...?" she asked.
Cal did his best to hide the sadness on his face. "About time you met your mother, isn't it, love?" he suggested, trying to change the subject.
"Honey, please don't shut me out," Gill said softly for the second time that morning. She'd come to learn that when Cal's emotions ran high he put his walls up pretty quickly.
"What do you want me to say, then?" Cal asked. "Yeah, I thought the implication was we were trying to have a baby. Maybe not doing everything we could, but generally when you stop using birth control and you keep having sex there's a pretty reasonable expectation that neither party would find a pregnancy unwelcome." The hurt on his face and in his voice was evident.
Gill reached out and stroked his chest a little, brushing off an imaginary piece of lint. She pursed her lips. "You really thought that's what we were doing and wanted it enough that you went along with it?" she asked. She hadn't realised, although she could see now why Cal would have assumed that.
"Yeah I bloody wanted it," Cal said, the harshness of his words dampened by the gentleness of his tone. "I got a tattoo with a space for our child's name. How much more committed to wanting something can you be?" he asked.
Gill looked down then and closed her eyes briefly. "What are you going to do with it if I don't change my mind?" she asked softly.
Cal chewed his bottom lip. Gill had always wanted kids, he'd never considered it would be a problem or he wouldn't have gone ahead with getting the tattoo. He supposed, in hindsight, it was something they should have discussed openly. "Keep it as it is," he told her, deciding on the spot. "Your feelings about trying for kids might affect whether we try or not, but they won't change the fact that I want one. I don't want to forget that."
"Cal..." Gill said softly, trying to persuade him to change his mind.
"What?" he asked. "You said not to shut you out so I told you how I feel. I want to have a family with you, and if that means we try to conceive naturally and it doesn't work then I'd want to explore our other options for having a child that's biologically ours. If that doesn't work, or you really couldn't go through it again, then I'd be more than happy to adopt and I'd love that little boy or girl just as much, because we don't need DNA in common for us to be a family. There are ways we can do this. I don't want to see you in pain, I just wish I could convince you that it's worth the risk."
"You don't know what it's like," Gill protested, her eyes filling with tears as she looked up at Cal, begging him to stop pushing the issue.
"Don't know what what's like?" Cal asked, shifting so he was facing Gill properly.
"Losing a child," Gill said quietly, her tears falling freely down her cheeks now.
Cal's facial expression changed for just a second before he wrapped his arms around Gill. She was crying too hard to have noticed the microexpression.
"I'm sorry, love," he said softly. "I'm so, so sorry." He hated seeing her cry. He was glad she didn't see the single tear that ran down his cheek as he dealt with his own pain. There were some things he was keeping to himself.
"Gillian, are you in there?" her mother's voice came through the door after a brief knock.
Cal wiped the tear from his cheek quickly then let Gill go.
"Cal Lightman, you'd better not be up to mischief in there," she called through the door. "I thought you said you were getting separate rooms."
Her mother's words caused Gill to laugh through her tears- she'd cried so much that morning that she was just about cried out anyway. "I wonder if she realises I lost my virginity the first time I got married," she asked Cal, taking a tissue when he offered it to her.
Cal looked at his fiancé, a little stunned. "Wait. Alec was your first?" he asked. That made him despise Gill's ex even more. Not only was Gill keeping his name for work, she'd lost her virginity to him!
Gill smiled knowingly, her eyes sparkling even through the tears that were still there. The look on her face said 'wouldn't you like to know?'. "That's not a question for me to answer with my mother outside the door accusing you of engaging in pre-marital sex with her daughter, is it?" she asked.
Cal grumbled but conceded she had a point, walking over to let Gill's mother in.
"What took you so long?" the older woman asked, eyeing Cal suspiciously.
"Lovely to see you, too," he replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "We were talking."
"Talking?" she asked.
"Mum, it's okay," Gill intervened, walking over to see her and smiling reassuringly when her mother noticed she'd been crying. "We were talking about Sophie," she said, not having a problem with the half-truth.
Gill's mother accepted that and stopped then, much to Cal's relief. She reached out and took the tissue her daughter was holding, wiping her eyes and gently dabbing where her eye make-up had run. Every time he saw Gill's mother Cal was reminded that it was obvious where she got her maternal instincts from.
"I'm sorry, baby girl," she whispered, wiping a smudge off Gill's cheek with her thumb. "Nothing can compare to the pain of losing a child, and nothing will ever replace her," she said softly. "Does Cal want another child, though?" she asked. "Your father and I lost a baby before you and..."
"I know, mum," Gill said softly. She'd heard it a thousand times before. "And then you had me, and even though the pain never goes away it's hard to cry when you've got the light of your life in your arms. You've told me before," she said with a sigh.
"Well, maybe you should listen, sweetheart," she said gently. 'I'm not saying it for no reason. Cal's a good man. He has a nice home, a successful business... He's raised a child before, so you know he's capable, which is more than I can say for...."
"Mum, enough, please," Gill said. "It's our successful business, and it wasn't Alec's fault Sophie got taken away. Can we please just go to lunch? I can't talk about this right now."
"You can't go like that, you poor baby. You look like you've been crying all morning."
"I have," Gill reminded her.
"No, we'll have something in the room and we can go shopping when you feel better," Gill's mother told her. "Meanwhile, I think you should listen to my advice. Cal, be a dear and go and get us some sandwiches, would you please?" she requested, reaching into her purse to get some money for him.
Cal had been listening silently to the exchange between mother and daughter. He had always liked Gill's mother. She was somewhat old-fashioned, but she was fair, and her love for her daughter was obvious. He was pretty sure, though, that he'd never liked her quite as much as he did right now- after all, it appeared he now had an ally. He glanced at Gill to see if she'd be alright without him and, receiving a nod, he smiled. "No, my treat," he insisted. "Back in a few minutes, love," he told Gill, closing the door behind him as he left.
He didn't want for her to keep hurting when they continued to discuss it, which was probably why Cal couldn't help but feel guilty as he walked down the hall and found himself hoping that Gill's mother's words were more persuasive than his own.
