A/N: This is a day later than I wanted to post, but I couldn't get the end to cooperate (as usual--endings are the toughest part for me most of the time). I've got it about where I want it now, and so here it is, for your enjoyment.

Chapter 14: Understanding

Allyson stood in front of Eric's front door, her arm half raised, fist curled and ready to knock. But she hesitated. Is this going to be awkward after what happened with Tim and me? After several long seconds she finally knocked, and waited nervously for an answer.

He swung the door open and smiled brightly, instantly easing her fears. "Hey Allyson," he greeted her. "Come on in." He closed the door behind her and slid an arm around her, pulling her to him in a loose hug and pecking her on the cheek. "How are you doing?"

She could tell by the sympathetic expression on his face that he knew about the fight. "I'm okay," she told him with a half-smile.

He released her and paused a moment, studying her face, noting the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin. "Then why do you look like you haven't slept in a week?"

"Five days," she corrected softly.

"Five days?" he repeated.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "Ever since the attack, I-I don't sleep well when I'm alone."

"And you've been alone for five days," he realized quickly. Reaching out and sliding a hand over her arm, he squeezed affectionately. "Well, for what it's worth, I'm sure you two will sort things out soon. You have to," he chuckled, "because Speed looks like crap. If you guys are apart any longer he's going to turn into a caveman."

That earned him a small laugh. "You know how he is."

"Yeah, I do," Eric replied earnestly. "And I know how much he cares about you. It'll all work out." He waited a moment, then grinned lightly. "In the meantime, if you need someone to sleep on your couch so that you're not alone, I'm your guy."

Her smile grew soft at his offer. "Thanks, Eric," she responded with sparkling eyes. "I appreciate that."

"Yeah, well, I appreciate the shopping assistance," he told her, releasing her arm and grabbing his wallet. "I love my sisters, but I never seem to pick out the right things on my own."

"That's because you're a guy," she chuckled, exiting through the door as he held it open for her.

"And I don't know the first thing about shopping," he confessed, following her out to her car. "So where do we start?"

"We have two options," she decided. "We can go to the mall, where there are millions of cranky holiday shoppers, but also a variety of stores, so we can get a lot done without driving around too much." She halted briefly as she ducked into the driver's seat, resuming when Eric had seated himself beside her. "Or, we can go to some specialty stores, where there are fewer people, but we'll have to do more driving."

Eric wrinkled up his nose in distaste. "So, it's really the lesser of the two evils."

"Yeah."

"Calleigh and I usually just go to the mall," he explained. "Now I guess I know why. Dodging people with shopping bags is less dangerous than dodging people in cars."

She laughed a little. "The mall it is."

Once they turned into the acres of parking lot, the hunt began: for a parking space, for the right store, for the right gift. They strolled around the mall, fighting crowds of anxious holiday shoppers, fussy children, and cranky sales people, but managed to find a few items of interest. There were the matching baskets of lotions and bath salts for Eric's sisters, the earrings for his mother, the bathrobe for Allyson's father, and the DVDs for Amanda.

They were poking around an electronics store when Eric's pager went off. He pulled it from his belt while Allyson inspected the different models of iPods in the glass case in front of them. She looked up when she heard him groan.

"Work?"

He frowned. "Work. Multiple fatalities, all hands on deck."

"Okay, I'll get this real quick and then we'll go," she told him, signaling the clerk behind the counter.

Allyson drove to the Crime Lab directly, rather than taking Eric home first, cutting the engine when they arrived and hopping out of the car to unlock the trunk where his purchases were stashed. "Think there's enough room in your locker for all that?"

He grinned. "Yeah, especially since you talked me out of getting a new vacuum cleaner for my mother."

They said their good-byes with hugs and pecks on cheeks, and Eric headed inside. As he moved toward the building, though, Allyson noticed a familiar figure walking away from it. She watched the woman's businesslike stride, watched her hesitate when their eyes met.

Calleigh.

The CSI changed directions, making her way to the space where Allyson had parked, a determined expression on her face. Her voice was even when she spoke. "Hi Allyson."

"Hi Calleigh," the teacher returned neutrally. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you have a minute…to talk?" Calleigh asked.

Allyson nodded. "Sure."

Calleigh wavered a brief instant before deciding just to plunge ahead. "I'm sorry," she began, folding her arms across her chest. Allyson didn't react, didn't reply, so she continued, "I, um, judged you based almost entirely on the fact that you were a victim in one of Tim's cases…I let that fact alone shape my opinion about you, and that wasn't fair."

"No, it wasn't," Allyson agreed. "But I'm assuming there's some sort of explanation coming."

"Yeah." Calleigh glanced at the car parked behind them, then brought her green eyes back to Allyson's blue ones. "I freaked out, basically," she admitted, gesturing with her hands and bringing them to rest on her hips. "Tim is my friend, and…I was worried about him. I know that he can take care of himself, but after he met you he started acting different. Not bad different," she clarified, "but different. And I didn't know if he was thinking clearly—I didn't want anything to happen to him, to his cases, to the reputation of this lab. I guess I just went into protect mode, but it didn't come out that way."

Allyson smiled a small smile. "I can understand that," she said. "My best friend has sort of an iffy track record with men. And every time she starts telling me about the new guy in her life, my antenna automatically goes up. I want to tell her to be careful, or that he's a jerk or a loser. I want her to see what I see about him."

"But did you ever yell those things at her in the middle of a party?" Calleigh asked with an embarrassed chuckle.

"No," Allyson replied thoughtfully. Then she grinned. "But I've wanted to on more than one occasion. She's just so thick-headed sometimes that I want to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her, y'know?"

Calleigh laughed lightly. "Tim's the same way. He just won't listen, and the more insistent you are, the more he shuts you off."

"Exactly." Then Allyson became more serious. "I would never do anything to hurt Tim, Calleigh, in any way. And that means professionally, too."

"So if you had thought, even for a minute, that the two of you shouldn't be together, you'd have stopped seeing him?" Calleigh asked pointedly.

Allyson smothered a smile. She doesn't mince words, does she? "I would have insisted we come up with another game plan," she answered. "I want him in my life, but I don't want to screw up his."

The two women stood there together for a moment in silence, nodding.

"So you and I both really had the same overall goal," Calleigh recognized, "to protect Tim and the lab."

"We just had different methods of trying to reach that goal," Allyson grinned.

Calleigh laughed again. "I'll say." She pressed her lips together, contemplating her next words. "Look, I can't promise that I'll like you or you'll like me, or that we'll get along and be best friends. But I would like to get to know you, to make up my mind about all of you and not just what I read in your case file."

"I think that's a good idea," Allyson seconded. "I don't know much about you, either. Maybe we could have lunch sometime," she suggested.

"Or go to the firing range," Calleigh added with a sly smile.

Allyson chuckled. "I could use the practice."

"You shoot?"

The surprise in Calleigh's voice, in her face, made Allyson smile proudly. "Tim taught me."

"In case you need to use his weapon," Calleigh surmised with a nod. "That's smart."

"He has his moments, doesn't he?" Allyson laughed.

The criminalist studied the woman before her, the beginnings of understanding forming in her mind. "Yeah, he does."

Allyson was exiting Tim's bedroom that evening, a few folded articles of clothing in her arms, when she heard the front door open and slam shut. Seconds later, he was standing there in front of her.

"I, um…I just came by to get a few things for Buffalo," she told him slowly. "I meant to be gone before you got home."

In true Speedle fashion, his response was minimal. "Oh."

He stood there looking at her, or rather, looking past her, and she found herself becoming angry. "So this is how it is now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "You're just not going to talk to me at all?"

"What do you want me to say?" he responded flatly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Anything," she told him, struggling to keep her voice even. "Just talk to me."

He looked further away, his voice quiet when he replied. "I can't. Not about this."

Allyson was torn. On one hand, she was sympathetic to Tim—whatever was going on obviously bothered him, and she hated to see him upset. On the other hand, his refusal to trust her with his problem after she had trusted him with all of hers made her angry. Both emotions played across her face when she spoke. "Not about this? What could be so bad that you can't talk to me about it?" she asked. "I love you, Tim. You know all my secrets, all my problems. You were there with me through the worst part of my life, and you've been a part of every aspect of it since. You've been to school events, you've met my friends, you know my family. Why can't you reciprocate with this?"

His eyes slowly shifted to hers, knowing the hurt she was experiencing was because of him. This was not supposed to happen. "I know," he told her softly, longing to reach out and wrap her in his arms, to kiss her and feel her smile against his mouth. He cleared his throat, digging his fingers into his thighs inside his pockets. "I just—"

"—can't explain it," she finished for him. "Yeah, you mentioned that."

"Yet," he added. He waited for her to process the word before continuing. "Yes, I have a problem with you and my parents, and no, I can't talk about it. Yet." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, searching for the right words. "What I mean is, everything is all mixed up in my head, and I can't explain it to you until it makes sense to me."

"I can help you sort it out," she offered. "That's what I'm here for, right?"

He shook his head lightly. "I have to do this on my own," he decided. "At least for now. But we will talk about it, and I am going to need your help figuring out a solution…when I'm ready for that part. I don't want you to think I'm keeping things from you." He stepped forward, reaching out and clasping one of her hands in his. "I've never kept anything from you."

She squeezed his hand warmly, relief flooding her system at his touch. "I know. That's why I freaked out," she explained, hints of a smile tugging at her lips. "Promise me this isn't going to happen again."

"What? That we won't fight again?" he wondered. "Ally, you know I can't promise that—"

"No," she shook her head. "Promise me that you're not going to shut me out again, even for a minute." She drew closer to him, the clothes in her arm pressed between them. "If you need time, or space, or whatever, I can understand that. Just tell me that's what's going on, okay? Don't leave me out of the loop."

He leaned down, resting his forehead against hers, running his thumb over the smooth skin of her hand still clasped in his. "Okay," he answered tenderly. "I'm just not used to having to do that—I've never been this close to anyone before, never had anyone worry like that when I get a little…introspective."

"Well, now you do," she murmured.

"I need you to promise me something, too," he told her, his free arm sliding around her waist.

"What's that?"

"That you won't tell me you love me by yelling at me anymore," he answered.

She drew even closer to him, her lips brushing against his ear. "I love you," she whispered, and she could feel his mouth pulling into a grin against her cheek.

His lips found hers in a gentle kiss, separating only briefly to mumble a happy response before capturing them again. "I love you, too."