Author's note: Hi everyone!

I know I didn't behave))) Was really busy and most importantly had no idea how to bring this to an end (and yep, this is the last chapter).

Everyone who read and reviewed the story, please know how much it meant to me and how much joy all your words brought me - SO VERY MUCH!!!)))

Sorry to keep you waiting, hope you forgive me.

So! Congratulations on Premier of Season 2! It's like Christmas for us) So here's my present under the tree.

Please, enjoy this last chapter of the story)

I will miss ya all so much!

A.

The chapter which elaborates on sacrifice

"Hello."

"Hi, Gill, I..."

"I know."

"Listen... I've been thinking about what you said and... I don't know. I don't know how to do this..."

"Alec..."

"It was one bad night... Maybe we could..."

"..."

"You're crying?"

"No... no, I'm fine."

"It's really good to hear your voice."

"Yeah, I'm... I'm glad that you called too."

"I... I don't know how to be without you, Gill."

"Don't... Don't. Look, I'm glad that you called but i just can't do this, ok?"

***

The reason Cal came to her that morning was simple: he needed her support. He was about to do something that was right but the exact kind of right that the good guys always neglected. He was going to deliberately conceal the fact that Dupree was missing. He had good reasons too. Ke knew Torres was needed on the case and could do nothing to help find Dupree. He knew she owed it to the people who could die in the next few hours to do her best and he knew she wasn't grown up enough to stay and do her job knowing her boyfriend was unaccounted for. He knew he would have to make the choice for her. However, at the thought of something happening to Emily and someone keeping it from him deliberately, his blood was starting to boil. Cal Lightman was going to do the right thing even though he hated it. He was going to sacrifice his inner feeling of write and wrong and he needed her to stand by him.

It was a hell of a crazy morning, but the sight of Gillian Foster fighting the tears rolling down her cheeks did it for him. He didn't even know what to say and the next thing he knew was that her tears were so damn important.

"What the hell happened? Was it Alec? Was it him on the phone? How do I help? Gonna kill the bastard." his head was suddenly full of inconsistent, blurry thoughts that had nothing to do with mass murdering that was going on. He kicked himself mentally for having those thoughts. It was no place for his or her feelings to be taken into consideration. They could help to prevent many deaths and they didn't have the right to let the tiniest bits of attention and focus slip away. That was exactly the sacrifice required: he didn't have the right to care for her tears. She didn't have the right to cry over her personal stuff in the first place. Cal figured she felt the same way, looking at how she faced him, her voice and her posture conveying a simple message: "I'm ok. I'm here to do my job and I will do it well. Or better."

***

"It's so crazy... I mean, i heard 40 people died already, and a bunch of them are my age..."

"Yeah, it is. But everything's gonna be fine."

"No, adults always say that, but I mean... It's not fine!"

"You know what, you're right. But not every day is gonna be like this."

"You know, my mom's been spending all this time with dad... They think I don't know. It's like... they don't even remember how bad it was"

"They'll have to figure it out for themselves. Maybe it will be different."

"You don't believe that. He's so much happier when he's with you."

***

He learned what happened only in the evening when it was all over. Cal felt emotionally and physically drained - it was a really long day. However he still had business he had to take care of - Torres. Cal knew perfectly well she was hating him at that very moment. Torres needed to learn one of the most important lessons of their profession - the sacrifice. That Cal had to take care of. There was another thing - Foster's eyes full of tears that haunted him all through the day no matter how hard he tried to push the image away. That he needed to take care of. Not had to and maybe not even should have. Needed to.

It wasn't so much what she said. It was what she didn't say, but what he heard.

"I'm ok"

"I'm not ok."

"Alec and I are separating. I'm moving out."

"I left him, I'm moving on."

"You know I can't even picture it. Being on my own."

"I'm scared and lost. But I did the right thing."

"I'll be alright. You should go. You should go."

"You have to take care of Torres. She needs to learn."

There it was again - the sacrifice. Instead of asking him for support she clearly needed, Foster sent him away because of something he had to do. Because Torres needed to learn the sacrifice. Because it will help to save many lives in future. Because that was the right thing to do. Cal Lightman was going to do the right thing even though he hated it.

He nodded lightly and left her office, not looking back. Not once, for he knew that another look at her sad form would bring him running back to her. And he needed to teach Torres sacrifice.

Cal walked up to the elevator and in the same instant the doors slid open and Rodrigo walked out of it, two Baskin Robins ice-cream bowls in his hands.

"Good evening," Rodrigo smiled politely while Cal stared at him with a slight frown.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

"Special delivery?", Cal asked in a low voice, that took all the fun out of the supposed-to-be polite conversation.

Rodrigo smirked arrogantly, one of his lip corners going up slightly, and answered in a heartfelt tone that clearly contradicted his demeanour "yeah, Rocky Road and Pistachio, didn't know which she would like best."

Cal smirked back and just stared at him intensely, being his unnerving self.

After a few seconds of a very uncomfortable silence Rodrigo was the first one to speak up, this time his voice sounded quieter and more sincere, the arrogance gone from his features:

"Thank you for helping Carla out. I know you thought what she did was wrong but you still got her out of it and..."

"And how do you know I didn't want to?" Cal interrupted him, frowning slightly.

"Gillian. Anyway, thank you. I'd better go now." Cal nodded and added, just as Rodrigo was moving past him:

"Praline."

"I'm sorry?"

"Her favourite ice cream. With caramel and sugar-coated nuts."

"It wouldn't help anyway", Cal heard sadness in another man's voice, guessing this wasn't some random visit.

"She must have called him. He knows. He is here to take care of her."

Cal watched Rodrigo enter the glass doors and Gillian look up sadly at him. He saw the man asking something and he knew it was one of those useless are-you-ok questions that would get just another yeah-i'm-ok answer from Gillian. His heart fell as he watched her mouth "No" and lean into Rodrigo's arms, dropping her defence down.

"That should have been me" ran through his mind. "She should trust me, should open up to me and let me hold her. That should be me."

***

"Are you ok?"

"No."

"Why did you call me?"

"Needed a friend"

"Your friend just left. Isn't he a friend?"

"He has somewhere to be."

"He'd rather be here with you. Sent him away, didn't you?"

"Don't want him to see me like this."

"I should have known."

"Known what?"

"That it was him in your eyes that day we were dancing."

"Not true"

"Liar. Rocky Road or Pistachio?"

"How about normal food?"

"So you're not denying it?"

"I'm too weak to argue. Feed me first, then attack me with your wild ideas."

"You got it. Chinese?"

***

"That should have been me." Only now, after his talk with Torres Cal realised what that meant.

"It comes with sacrifice, believe me." As he said those words, something inside him exploded, turning his world upside down.

"That should have been me rushing to her this very morning and asking her what's wrong. That should have been me with her this evening. That should have been me taking her to dinner every night. That should have been me taking her home. That should have been me eating breakfast with her. That should have been me all along."

Was there a limit to sacrifice? Some line after which sacrifice was too enormous to even make sense? If there was, Cal Lightman knew he was so far beyond that line that if he looked back he could hardly see it.

The main question was: what was the sacrifice for? His own fear? Apprehension? Sensibility? Comfort he didn't want to distort?Feelings of his ex wife? Respect towards marriage? His weakness?

Those were not reasons for a sacrifice, those were justifications for not doing anything, not going after what he wanted, not being ready to fight for it.

The realisation dawned on him as all those things that kept him from making any, even tentative steps, seemed shallow and empty and useless and stupid now. Cal Lightman felt he had sacrificed too much for nothing. And he wouldn't do it anymore.

He reached his own deception point, the point where all the lies he told himself were obvious and unimaginative and plain, completely unappealing. It felt like he was standing in the middle of the labyrinth, but the walls were crumbling around him, revealing the right and only path he should take.

Now Cal Lightman knew what he wanted and needed.

"That should have been me"

Her.

THANK YOU!!!

XXX

A.

ps. my story "Inconsistency" could be seen as a post "Deception Point". Not too far in the future though, cause we all know Cal is gonna take some action now))