So, it was supposed to be a two-parter but this turned out to be longer than I thought and I still have to figure out the next step. I know where this goes, just trying to find the best way to get there. Disclaimer as usual; I own nothing but these silly ideas.

Where his concerns about Foster's ability to fit in with the environment proved to be unfounded, those about the choice of place were not completely soothed. The food wasn't terrible, but as someone who had been brought up with the original stuff Cal couldn't help but find about a dozen defects with what was on the menu. Wisely, he managed to keep his mouth shut and enjoy the company, especially Foster's outraged reaction at the size of the fish and chips plate out in front of her.

"Wow!" She gasped and he laughed while sipping his beer. "Is this for real?"

"On the small size even, if you ya know what I mean."

She flashed him a glare, amused but also annoyed by the irrelevant innuendo, then she decided to dig in. Cal watched her with a grin, entertained by her indecision on how to tackle it and confident she'd find her way around it, then went after the burger he had ordered for himself.

In between bites and sips they made small talks, innocuous chit-chats steering clear of anything related to their working day as they often did on similar occasions. They loved their job and cared for their business but at times it was the last thing they wanted to talk about, especially since by the end of a case there was very little they didn't know already. Emily was always one of the main topics of conversation: Cal would never get tired of talking about his daughter and Gillian genuinely wanted to hear about her. She cared about the girl, and knowing what was going on with her was always a great way to check the pulse on her father, just in case.

Once the food was gone and the table cleared they ordered a second round of drinks, both easing peacefully into the padded seats with full bellies and satisfied spirits. The silence between them was familiar and welcomed as much as talking, to be able to share time and space with someone without the need to talk was no small fee and they knew how lucky they were to be able to enjoy moments like that.

Even when they knew it wouldn't last forever.

"So," it was Foster the one to make the first move, not surprisingly. "Who is Sally Robinson then?"

Cal's lips quipped in a strange grin, amused but also surprised by the question.

"Really?" He asked. "Of all the things, that is what you wanna know?"

Foster shrugged, trying to undersel her curiosity but knowing her attitude would probably have the opposite effect on him.

"I have to start from somewhere," she explained, then leaned forward on the table getting closer to him. "And you did look frazzled when Torres mentioned that name."

"Who do you think it is?" His playful attempt to engage in a game, and deflect, fell spectacularly flat judging by the lack of reaction on her face. Then Cal sighed and took a sip of his drink watching her closely, realising resistance was futile. "It wasn't an old flame, if that's what you think."

"Oh, I know it wasn't."

"How?"

"No arousal," she stated, matter of factly. "Haven't seen any of your exes or flings not getting that kind of reaction out of you."

Cal bit at his bottom lip, flashing what was more a macro 'scream-in-your-face' expression of childish shame rather than a micro one. Foster scored a point and she knew it, it was all over her satisfied grin and the way she leaned back in a victorious retreat, but he wasn't surprised. Cal knew she could be as good as he was at reading people, especially him, and as a psychologist she had an edge he'd probably never fully develop: she understood the feeling behind the faces better than anybody else.

He sighed again, this time just to gather some memories and strength from the past, then he leaned back and slouched on the seat before looking at her.

"When I moved in with Terry's family they lived in this crappy estate, like a psychotic gigantic child had been playing with blocks of cements to build this monstrosity. The good thing about it was that everything was there, you know? Corner shop to buy anything from toilet paper to booze, the school was five minutes away, there was a small park within and even a pool club." When he wanted, or maybe when he didn't realise, he could be a great storyteller and Giliian was soon lost in trying to put his words into vivid images. "The bad thing about it was that there was nothing much for us outside the place. People skating by, no money and often no jobs…young as we were, it was our little world and it wasn't much. That is how we ended up being…naughty, here and there."

She smiled at him, imagining young Cal wreaking havoc in the neighbourhood. Then she remembered what he had said earlier that day, what Terry had told him when he had gone to prison, and even without knowing the details she knew he had come a long way. He looked ok, thus far, there was a little cloud of something darkening his forehead but Foster could tell it was more about remembering than anything else. Still, she moved closer to him and took his hand, giving it a little squeeze before he went on.

"There was this woman, on the third floor, Sally Robinson. She was a cranky old lady with a small dog who barked all the time, and yet she wouldn't stop complaining about us kids mucking about and playing in the yard. Granted, we were a bit loud at times, but she could be even louder when yelling at us to keep it down." Cal smiled to himself, memories hitting him again as he spoke. "We ignored her of course, and being the stupid lads we were we made fun of her because she wasn't going to accomplish much with her yelling. And then one day she must have realised that too because she started throwing buckets of water at us."

"W-what?"

"Water bombs, we called them." He went on. "No warnings whatsoever, one day we're kicking the ball around and all of a sudden I get hit by a cascade of cold water, right in the head, like a ton of bricks. The sound it made, I swear I'll never forget it. We-Oi!"

Gillian knew she shouldn't have, or thought she shouldn't have, but she couldn't stop herself from laughing at the image. She tried, covering her mouth with one hand, but all of a sudden a picture of young Cal drenched in water from the sky flashed before her eyes and she lost it, laughing freely right in his face. Cal bit at his bottom lip, regretting the inclusion of that very personal detail but somewhat glad that someone could see the funny side of it.

"I'm sorry Cal-"

"Liar!" He grumbled, trying too hard to look hurt. "Do you have any idea what it feels like, gravity dropping six litres of water on you? Anyway," he decided to move on from that, seeing her mouth hinting at new fits of laughter it seemed best to stop sharing further information on that part of the story. "She took on doing this all the time and let me tell you, she was skilled with them buckets. Any time of day, even if we weren't outside playing but just walking back from school or the shop…you didn't know when she was going to strike. So we started to be on the lookout for her, we had spotters while we played or hung about and whenever we'd see her we would yell at each other to take cover." He took a long sip of his beer, starting to feel like he was going to regret telling her anything about that but also that since he had started might as well finish with it. "Years later, when Terry and I started with our…business," she gave him a knowing nod, as to say she was gracefully going to hold back in asking about that part, "Sally Robinson became some sort of a code for troubles. If we thought someone was onto us, or that we couldn't trust somebody we would sneak her name into the conversation and get out of there before-"

"Before someone could dump water on you?" Foster offered the ending of the sentence to him, a not too subtle way to say he didn't need to go further if he didn't want to.

Cal was grateful for it. Truth was, it had been a trying couple of days for him, and as much as he knew sending Terry back to the UK with a one way ticket was the right thing to do, it wasn't an easy decision to live with. He was glad he had opened up to Gillian about their history at least in the part she had the right to know, but he wasn't entirely sure he was ready for more.

They both let the last words on each side settle down, sipping their drinks while still holding hands on the table, enjoying the bubble of silence they had created to shield them from the noisy crowd in the pub. It hadn't been an emotional conversation, far from it, they could do and had done far worse, but it had been a long day for both of them and it was good to know he could call it a day, metaphorically speaking, if he wanted to. It was comforting to know she knew and respected that, he wasn't surprised after all, but he was also well aware she was probably using some kind of reverse psychology on him. It was another difference between them, another reason why they complimented each other so well: when he wanted people to talk about what they were hiding he would ask them, push them, whereas Gillian would let them find their way to her even when pretending she didn't care if they did or not.

And for a brief moment Cal felt a strange hitch, the sudden impulse to carry on talking and open a whole chapter of the Terry & Cal saga. Dammit woman, he thought, you did it again!

He only thought that in his head but the grunt he stifled between his closed lips gave him away. Gillian smiled shyly, knowing what it meant, then squeezed his hand again and gently stroked the back of it with her finger. She didn't say anything, she knew she was in and there was no need to push further, and she wanted him to know he still had time to back out if he wanted to. She was ready for it, or at least some attempt at levity or deflection before he'd get to the point, but she was not expecting what he actually said.

"Guess I could have used someone yelling that name at me over the past two days," he mumbled in a low voice, looking down at their hands on the table. Then he leaned forward and placed his other hand on top of hers , looking straight at her. "I know you meant well, I am sorry I wasn't in the mood to see it."

Foster smiled grateful at him, but then shook her head and waved her free hand in a dismissive gesture.

"I understand Cal, don't worry about-"

"It wasn't about trust, you know?" He cut her off gently. She saw a certain determination in his face and was taken aback, but decided to go with it: it didn't happen often for Cal to insist on talking about that kind of stuff and she wasn't going to stop him. "I do trust you. And the rest, most of the time." Of course he couldn't help but throw some shades, but she could live with that. "And I did tell Reynolds, don't you forget that."

"Why him and not me?"

To any other person her question might have sounded childish, but Cal knew exactly what she meant. She was his partner, his friend, the person he could count on and she hadn't gone to her.

"Because he could do something about it, FBI and all."

Gillian had to admit that it made sense, however, it was clear by the way he averted his gaze for a moment that there was more. And that she was not going to like it.

"And because I didn't know how deep this shit he brought with him was," he added then, earning a highly anticipated scoff from her.

"You really need to stop doing that," Foster scolded him. "Thinking you have to protect me from everything that comes your way."

"Can't help it, love," he confessed.

He was looking at her with that patented stare of him, the one that always felt like he was digging bare-handed inside her soul. It was a unique balance he had, able to show things to her while at the same time seeing through the barriers she might put up. It was a look that always left her confused, in between relieved and exposed, but Foster couldn't say she didn't like to be on the receiving end of it.

"Trust wasn't the issue," he then said again, almost talking more to himself than to her.

Gillian frowned, confused by the repetition. He looked like he had gone somewhere else, miles away from there, briefly lost in time and space.

"What was it then?"

"Loyalty."

"Isn't that…kind of the same thing?"

"Far from it, love."

There was a hint of sadness in his voice, but he waved it off with a shrug when he caught the concern on her face. He had something in his mind alright, but something in the way he looked told Gillian that she shouldn't worry about it too much. Either it wasn't anything bad, or he was going to spill the guts eventually.

"I am loyal to Terry, to a fault," he admitted. "But I don't trust him. The moment I saw him in my office…forget micro expressions and read people, right?" He let go of her hand and waved his in the air, that random gesturing usually accompanying his mental ramblings and shy confessions. "I know him, Terry is not on for courtesy calls. I hadn't seen him in years and I was well aware his presence only meant troubles. I don't mind getting my hands dirty, I am far from being a saint and I did deserve to go to jail as much as he did…but I did try to get out of that bloody estate we were trapped in." He absently touched his forehead, a sign that the place he was talking about was as mental as it had been physical. "I knew he was up to something and went along with it anyway. Because of our past, because I owed him, because I felt guilty and because I am loyal to him against my best judgement." He stopped abruptly, widening his eyes as if a sudden epiphany had just gone through his brain like a lightning bolt. "Come to think of it, it reminds me of someone."

Foster bit at her bottom lip as he whispered those words, feeling the pain the realisation brought him on her behalf. She hated that, with all of her being. She had enough of hearing that refrain from him about being a pain in the ass, as much as she was of that incessant need he had to protect her because both tendencies frequently led him to lie to her about so many things. Gillian felt a sudden rift of rage coming up inside her, feeling another one of this "I don't deserve you" speech. She knew she had taken quite the step with that intervention about him not trusting them - her - and the last thing she wanted to hear what that crap about-

"I do trust you, Gillian, more than I show." Cal spoke again with a soft voice, leaning in to take her hands in his again with a gentle touch. "And that is partly why I didn't tell you. I knew you'd jump on it and get dragged into it and with Terry involved…too risky. I couldn't let that happen."

It was hard to stay mad at him when he was like that, open and vulnerable. It was still annoying that it all seemed to come down to him wanting to protect her, but it was always nice to know someone cared about you like that. She sighed and shook her head at his childish smile, he knew he had gotten away with it somehow, then she scooted closer to him on the seat and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her a bit closer.

Thanks to all that have been reading, commenting and following. Isn't it great that these characters can still find their way to us?! Anyway, feedback is always welcome and last part to be ready soon.