A/N: Thanks for the feedback, everyone! Much appreciated! Somehow this chapter wound up much more Gillian-centric than I'd expected, but there is a pretty healthy dose of Callian chemistry in the second half, so I hope you all enjoy. :)

(Also, I don't usually incorporate song lyrics into my writing, but I couldn't resist throwing a few in here. It isn't much, but it's my little nod to the balcony scene. )

"It's Gillian, now," she gently corrected. And then she shrugged, unable to hide the tiny remnants of pity that somehow wove their way across her features and into her voice. "It's time to face the facts, Alec. I'm not your 'Gilly' anymore."

In the background, the soothing sounds of Frank Sinatra filled the room with comforting melody. His voice warmed her; it loosened every limb and every ache, until she practically floated – wine glass in hand – back to the sofa. Her eyes drifted closed seconds later, lost in the lyrics and the tranquility that had suddenly overtaken her.

Was this the way she was supposed to feel?

Probably not.

But facts were facts, and all of "this" – the fallout from a string of selfish decisions, secrets, and misguided efforts to make their marriage work – had been coming for a very long time. And the writing had been on the wall, so to speak, since months before Cal Lightman ever pressed her willing body against it.

Gillian Foster was a rational person, and God knows she'd thought long and hard about how to handle her marriage. How to… dissolve it… without making unnecessary waves. Yes, Alec had hurt her. He'd cheated, and lied, and wasted away the bulk of their life savings either falling into or out of addiction. But still…

She'd loved him once.

The woman she used to be had fallen head-over-heels for his ambition and his energy; for the stability he represented, and for the strength he'd given her in the early days of their relationship. He was the reason she went into psychology, after all. He'd pushed her into graduate school… gave her pep talks during midterms, when she was convinced she was in over her head… reassured her that she was worthy of anything, despite having dysfunctional and emotionally distant parents who had tried to convince her otherwise.

But now…

Now, the woman she'd become knew that real love – real, unconditional, permanent love – could not be measured on a tally sheet. It wasn't mathematical. It wasn't a matter of what one of them had done for the other in the past. Instead, it was a matter of what her heart wanted to give to someone else's in the future.

And that someone else… was Cal.

Only Cal.

Right on cue, Gillian felt her body respond to his name. She'd said it and thought it a million times over the years, but in that moment – as 'Ol' Blue Eyes' worked his magic in the background, and the wine glass began to feel heavy and conspicuous between her fingers – it sounded different. New. And it warmed her, from head to toe and back again, drawing a smile to her lips and a tingle to her limbs that felt like… restless energy, mixed with the promise of something she'd long ago labeled as a mere fantasy.

It felt like hope.

Funny how quickly everything had changed. A mere twenty-four hours earlier, she hadn't known what it felt like to kiss him… to touch him… to wrap her arms around his body, or feel his breath hot and heavy against her ear. To hear the sound of her name spoken in that way, by a voice thick with both desire and restraint. She hadn't known how hard it would be to walk away from him. To be absolutely certain that she loved him, heart and soul, and yet walk away without saying it aloud.

He'd seen it, though. Of that much, she was positive. And for a little while longer, that would have to be enough.

Out of all the confessions she and Cal had made that day, Gillian's thoughts kept circling back to what he'd said in her office just a few hours earlier – as she stood with her heart on her sleeve and every single ounce of desire written plainly across her face.

"There's nothing wrong with taking our time, so long as we both have the same destination in mind," he'd insisted. "It's not when we reach the finish line that's important to me, but rather… how we choose to walk the path that leads us there."

For a man who often joked that he wasn't good with words, Cal had certainly used them well. And then he'd been the one to insist that they stop. To actually say – verbatim – that they should "focus on the bigger picture" until all of the other details were sorted out. Important details, such as his divorce and custody arrangement… her situation with Alec… and, last but not least, those adoption papers they'd filed. The ones that Cal didn't really know much about. The ones that she now needed to revoke, somehow, and then re-file alone without raising any alarms. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was give the agency any reason to suspect that she and Alec had parted on less-than-friendly terms. Or, heaven help her, that drugs and infidelity were the driving forces behind their split.

Important details, indeed.

She took another sip from her glass, mindful of the music as it changed in the background. She heard the words… felt them individually, as if Sinatra had written them specifically for her. And while she knew, logically, that the wine was mostly to blame for her sudden sentimentality, she also knew, illogically, that the lyrics just… fit.

"You're always on my mind, though out of sight," he sang. "It's lonesome through the day, but oh, the night…"

Gillian closed her eyes, letting the notes wash over her one by one. And slowly but surely, she began to trust the thoughts that flooded to the forefront of her mind, rather than insist upon brushing them aside. She did not want to stall. Not now. Not when everything had already changed so much.

Somehow, 'stalling' felt like a step backwards, and what she really wanted to do was move forward. Toward her future, and away from her past. She wanted to embrace the new and improved version of herself – the one that Cal saw, each and every time he looked at her. Strong, and confident, both with herself and with her life.

His Gillian.

Finally.

"I ask the sun and the moon, the stars that shine, what's to become of it, this love of mine."

As they often did at such a late hour, Gillian's thoughts lingered on Cal. It was predictable, yes… but she welcomed it. The fluttering in her stomach, and the tingle in her limbs and the good, old-fashioned 'charge' she felt as of late, every single time he entered her mind. When combined, all of those things were somehow… magical.

Curse her slightly inebriated senses, as soon as that word – "magical" – flittered through her brain, Gillian laughed. At herself. Because that had to be one of the biggest clichés she'd ever heard, and given the fact that their timing was absolutely awful, it seemed ten times funnier than it probably was. Trust her to finally admit to herself that she loved him, indulge in two delicious rounds of passionate kissing (with Cal being half-naked during the first), make tentative plans to try for round three sometime in the (near?) future, and ask for a divorce all in the same day.

Wine aside, her head was positively spinning.

If anyone were to have written a textbook on how to handle divorce (one of those infamous "Dummies" books, perhaps), then it certainly would not have included a chapter on jumping out of one man's bed and into another mere hours after pulling the trigger on the whole deal. Not even close. But her thoughts had gone rogue, and what was that old adage, again?

Something about the best way of getting over one man was... to get under another?

And just like that, Gillian shivered. Because… no. Oh, no. Trust her, she had no idea where that particular thought had come from. Well… alright, fine. She did. It came from a very happy place – full of groans of encouragement, and well-placed kisses, and rings that never interfered with the removal of clothing – but no.

Jesus, it was way too soon. It was… insane. It was crazy and wrong and ridiculous, and she just couldn't. They couldn't. And no matter how good she knew it would feel (the words "bloody fantastic" sprung to mind immediately) Gillian was suddenly reminded of what Cal had told her just a few hours earlier:

"Next time, I fully intend to make sure we end up somewhere without phones. Or television. Or radio, or walkie-talkies, or email, or any kind of outside interference at fucking all, and… and… just to be on the safe side, neither one of us better be wearing a ring. Because I swear to you, love. I swear to you. A third interruption might just kill me."

Bloody fantastic, indeed.

Her ring was still there – still in place on her fourth finger, where she suspected it would stay until the last of the paperwork was signed. But not because she was grieving the loss of her marriage; not even close. No, the ring was still there because that's simply the way Gillian worked. Just as Cal did.

Two rounds of the hottest sexual escapades she'd had in forever aside, they were traditionalists. They respected the vows of marriage (Yes, they did. They'd stopped, hadn't they?), and, like it or not, now that they'd started down the 'Neither One of Us Better Be Wearing a Ring' path, Gillian had to agree: it was the right one to walk. Painful, but necessary.

Simply put, removing those rings would mean something. A step forward – towards a future filled with possibilities and immeasurable happiness – rather than a step back. A beginning, rather than an end. And that, she knew, was definitely worth the wait.

He was worth the wait.

Cal…

And suddenly, she could see him in her minds' eye – slouched on his sofa, in much the same way that she was lounging on hers. With his tumbler of scotch instead of wine; with half-eaten toast, instead of a half-melted chocolate bar. With tousled hair and a wrinkled shirt, and stubble shadowing his jawline in that way that made him simultaneously sexy, yet deliciously unrefined. And she wanted him – his touch, his voice, his body. All of him.

All of him, with all of her.

He was miles away, completely oblivious as to what had happened with Alec, and she knew – without question – that she could change everything with a single phone call. Trouble was… she wasn't sure she should make it. Yet.

Rational Gillian knew that she needed to stop; to take a deep breath and focus. Get some sleep, greet the new day with refreshed senses, and, above all else, not leap too far too fast. But the other Gillian – the one who'd wanted to do far more than simply kiss Cal Lightman and who'd drawn on reserves of strength she didn't even know she owned, just to be able to pull her hands and her mouth away from his body – didn't want to listen.

That Gillian tried to argue.

She tried to insist that they were adults; that they could handle a simple phone call – a simple conversation – without turning into hormonal, sexually-frustrated messes in the span of a few short moments.

She tried to rationalize that she somehow owed it to Cal to tell him what she'd done; that the word 'divorce' had finally been spoken aloud, and that Alec was gone. Permanently.

But…

In her heart of hearts she already knew that it wouldn't be a simple call. And that they had as much chance of avoiding sexual feelings as hell had of freezing over; it just wasn't going to happen. Not now, and not ever.

But she was human. Weak. In love with a man who made her feel whole… bound by the constraints of a relationship that made her feel broken… and fighting to reconcile the two so that she could finally be happy. And so she waited only a few short moments – using introspection and the final few sips of wine to sway the tides in the direction she wanted them to turn – and then she reached for her phone.

Cal answered on the second ring.

"Gill?" he greeted her. "It's late love, is everything alright?"

His voice was so inviting; thick with the burn of scotch, yet rough with the attractive pull of sleep that hadn't managed to find him yet. And any ideas she'd had about what she would actually say to him once she got him on the line just vanished. She wanted to listen, instead. To feel, rather than think.

As if he'd read her mind, Cal let out the barest hint of a laugh; polite, yet teasing. And then he said, "One sided conversations aren't really my forte, yeah? Especially when I can't see your face. You've got me a bit hamstrung here, I'm afraid."

It was gentle. His attempt to prompt her into an explanation; his playful, slightly self-depreciating words that filled the silence when hers could not. And she loved him for it. For that, and for so much more.

So much more.

Gillian sighed. She willed away the nerves that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, because she didn't understand them. Didn't want to. But she'd called him, and there was a reason behind it, and well… she had to start somewhere. Right?

"Then that makes two of us," she tried.

Mere seconds later, she felt everything begin to change. The energy between them shifted, from casual to not and then back again, before settling somewhere in the middle where their longstanding comfort zone began to grow wider. To skirt the boundaries of what had once been over The Line, and now was kept within it.

"Aye, aye," Cal started. Slowly. Softly. His voice was low in her ear, and her pulse spiked while her resolve began to crumble. Then she shivered – literally shivered – in a way he would've loved, if only he could've seen it.

"You're the one with the advantage here, remember?" he continued. "Because you can read my voice. So tell me, Gill. Please. What's it saying right now?"

Oh, this was going to be harder than she thought, because she did not want to wait. Instead, she wanted to hop in her car, drive to his house, and show him what she was feeling. With actions, not words. It was as if all of the mutual attraction that had been building between them for years had suddenly spiked – like too much air in an overinflated balloon, leaving her dangerously aware of what would happen with one more puff.

Gillian knew how to move forward – what to do and what to say to bring him to her door in a matter of minutes. And she knew how to move backward. How to explain that even though the few stolen moments they'd spent together had been phenomenally good, there was still a rational side of her brain that was afraid to hope for too much, too fast. What she did not know – not even a little bit – was how to straddle the line. How to want him so bloody badly, and yet pull herself back from the edges of temptation after just a taste. How to touch him, and kiss him, and come *thisclose* to saying those three all-important words, and then just… stop.

No, she didn't have a clue. She was on brand new ground that she had no idea how to navigate. And so in the end, she simply closed her eyes… and jumped.

"It's saying that you're really, really curious as to what happened here tonight with Alec," she tried. "But that you're too much of a gentleman to actually come out and ask."

Was it eloquent? No, not even close. But between the effects of the wine, the arousal that had begun to flame out of control, and the stress of making massive changes to her personal life, it was a wonder she'd managed to sound sensible at all.

Through the receiver, Gillian could hear Cal trying not to laugh. And it was a valiant effort, but ultimately… he failed. "Gentleman, love?" he snickered. "Me? Hardly."

And yes, in all fairness, he did have a point. Just a tiny one. But the bigger picture – the one that called to her from behind the hazy details of a day that had been anything but ordinary – told Gillian that what she'd said had been absolutely true, whether he recognized it or not.

"You stopped, didn't you?" she countered. "We stopped, Cal. Twice."

Instantly cured of his snickering, he sighed. Deeply. As if he was weighing every possible reply in his mind before deciding on which one to use. "Technically… no," he said. "Two rings and a wanker with a telephone fetish took care of that, yeah? Not my sudden attack of gentlemanly conscience."

And then it was Gillian's turn to sigh, because really… he always did that. Sold himself short and 'tweaked' the details to paint himself in a less-than flattering light, every single time the conversation turned 'grey.' He knew how to handle the obvious; the black and white realities that they'd always known – the ones that served to keep 'The Line' between them firmly in place. But now that it had moved, everything else moved with it. Black and white had become grey as soon as their lips first touched, and she knew Cal was stuck in his own awkward dance between moving forward and standing still.

"You didn't start again, though," she tried, pointing out the obvious. "You could have. You definitely could have. But you didn't. So in my book, 'gentleman' fits."

He fell silent then, most likely struck by the way she'd emphasized the words "could have." Twice.

It was the truth, though. He could've slipped her dress from her shoulders, pressed her back against the wall, and poured everything inside of her – his heart and his body – and she would've gone willingly, wherever he led. Because she loved him, and he loved her, and he knew it. He'd seen it right on her face. So yes… as far as she was concerned, the term 'gentleman' definitely fit.

"Are you alright, Gillian?" he finally asked, careful to use her full name. Gillian. Not love, or darling, or Foster, or Gill. This time, it was Gillian.

And there was something in the way he spoke it – an underlying current that caught her ear and made her understand that she really wasn't 'jumping' at all. Yes, it was new and exciting, and yes, there was an inherent risk. A big one. But…

But…

The leap she needed to make led straight into his arms, and Gillian knew – right then and there – that stalling wouldn't get them anywhere. "Better than I've been in a very long time," she said candidly. And then she just came right out and said it – the simple truth that Cal likely already suspected.

"I told Alec that I want a divorce."

That was all. There was no flowery language, and no poetic, 'greeting card' delivery. Just truth. And nothing had ever felt more freeing.

Gillian Foster knew Cal Lightman very well – better than she'd ever known anyone in her entire life. And she knew that his sudden silence stemmed from his efforts to reign himself in. In other words, he was so afraid of saying something inappropriate or "Cal-esque" that would somehow ruin everything, that he didn't say anything at all.

Not a single word.

His thoughts, on the other hand, were anything but silent. Gillian could practically hear them through the phone line – buzzing and swarming in his head like a cloud of irritated bees. She knew he had at least a dozen questions (all centering around Alec, and if he'd done anything to hurt her), and that his gut was trying to pull him in five directions at once. So she took another deep breath before speaking the words she knew would calm him down instantly.

"He's gone, Cal. It's over."

And then she heard him breathe; heard the life start to come back into his body inch by inch, as he let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

"He left?" Cal asked, ever cautious.

"Yes," Gillian answered. "He left. Peacefully. And I'll admit while it does seem a little crazy that one of the most constructive conversations we've had in months came on the night I ended our marriage, there you have it. Textbook dysfunction. I'm just glad it's finished."

"Me too," Cal agreed. And although she knew he was trying to hide it, she easily heard his smile in those two simple words.

So he smiled while she sighed, and then she finally opted to address the other obvious issue. The big one. Which was how, exactly, they were going to 'cap' things for the evening, when the air had turned tense – as in, sexually tense. Again. Alec Foster had been one of the main reasons they'd "stopped," and now that Gillian's divorce was looming, could they really manage to wait for everything else to be crossed off the list?

Talk about a million dollar question.

Gillian became acutely aware of the mantle clock as it ticked along in the silent background. Its cadence reminded her that they'd reached a crossroads: they could listen to their bodies, and give in to temptation in the most delicious way… or… they could listen to their heads. Take their own advice, and handle everything that threatened to interrupt them so that when their time finally came, it would be… brilliant.

Suddenly introspective, her eyes tracked the room until they landed on that photo of Cal – the one that sat in front of her, where Alec had stood hours earlier as he tried to fight the inevitable. She loved that photo; loved the ease it held, and the unspoken reassurance that she would always be safe with him.

And a beat later, that's what swayed her decision. That word, specifically. 'Always.' Because she realized that it wasn't about one night, or one experience, or one… anything. It was about their future, and how they wanted it to begin. So… she chose brilliance.

"Cal, I want to see you tonight," Gillian started. "You know that, don't you?"

She paused then, listening to the conflict between her heartbeat (which rang with complete confidence that she was about to make the right decision) and the other parts of her body that began to groan in disappointment. Loudly.

"I want to see you," she repeated. "But… it's late, and I'm so tired, and…"

Trust him to hear the words she hadn't spoken yet; the ones that were stuck in her throat – tangled in a knot of desire and curiosity that she couldn't quite shake. And trust him to take the lead instead… to reassure her that he understood, and agreed, and that he was still very much willing to wait.

So as Gillian's voice faded away, his rang through clearly. "And," he emphasized, picking up right where she'd left off, "if I come over right now, neither one of us is likely to get much sleep, yeah?"

His tone was playful, yet comfortable, and she smiled instantly – able to imagine the look on his face and the waggle in his brows that occurred every single time they flirted so openly. She loved that waggle; loved that he did it just for her, because he knew it made her happy.

"My thoughts exactly," she answered. "So… how about we make a deal, then? No sleepovers or middle-of-the-night visits until everything is settled, and any threats of interruptions or sudden attacks of conscience are off the table. Call me selfish, but after what happened between us today – twice – I want to make sure that next time…"

Before she could finish the thought, Cal groaned. The sound of it echoed loud and long in her ear, causing a fresh trail of gooseflesh to run down the side of her neck and beyond, until it faded into a slow burning ache near her pelvis. Bittersweet, and appetizing, and oh so real.

"Next time," he repeated, "cannot come soon enough, love. And if Zoe, or Alec, or that bastard lapdog Jacobs drags so much as a finger through this whole process, to slow it down just for spite, then I swear to you, Gillian. I just might crack."