Time moves differently here. In an office building that once homed a group of passionate and lively workers. An office building that is now a refuge for people damaged by a tradegy. People wounded almost beyond repair by a woman who had more impact on them than she ever knew.
Time moves differently here. The outside world slipping away the second you cross the threshold. The usually minutes and hours falling away to mean nothing. They measure their time around her. Some of them in how many days it's been since her funeral. Others in how many days it's been since her passing. A small number take it right back, to the day she packed her bags and walked away. Something that they still don't have an explanation for. It doesn't matter which way they do it, which point they choose as their defining moment. Their methods of time keeping all come back to her. Are all centered in the peramiters of her absence. All tangled up in her ghost, in her memory, that haunts their once lively space.
Time moves differently here, for them and for me. But i'm different. I'm not measuring time in the days it's been since she left, since grief took hold, and shook the foundation of a life they believed was strong. Shook the foundation of a life they believed could weather any storm. I'm measuring my time in the days it's been since I took her call. Since the day I receiver my instructions. Since the day she invited me to meet her, and placed every last ounce of who she was in my care.
I took her call six weeks ago. The day after the whole slip and fall incident that started the final part of her plan. A plan I knew nothing about until I sat down with her. The day after she walked out of her job, out of her life, without so much as a word. When her name flashes on my caller ID I consider not answering. Consider letting her go to voicemail. But i'm intregued. Because as far as i've been able to tell from the whisperings and gossip that was swirling round the group that day, no-one knows why she's gone. Or where she's gone. Not even Cal. Which raises the questions, why is she phoning me. So I let my curiosity get the better of me. And by picking up the phone, I put the last part of her plan in to motion.
I agree to meet her, and she rushes an address i've never heard before through the phone and is gone. I drive the streets, until i'm on the outskirts of town and outside a boutique hotel that until this moment I didn't know exsisted. A beautiful boutique hotel that is now a permenant part of my memory. I follow her instructions and let my legs carry me until i'm stood infront of her room. Fifty-Three. A part of me wishes i'd never knocked on the door. Never discovered the reasons she wanted me here. But I did knock. And she answered.
I'm not sure what I thought I was going to find when I got here. Not sure what answers I was looking for. What truth I was preparing for. But as she swings open the door, and my eyes land upon her, I know that my imagination has not come close to the truth of what she has to say. Her hair is thrown on top of her head, with whispy bits falling to frame a face which is completely bare of makeup. Gone are the heals and the tight dresses that i'm used too. The outfits that cling to her in all the right places. The outfits that have Cal captivated. She looks younger like this, I think. Stripped back. Stripped bare. And it brings out a vulnerability in her that i've been yet to see. Her natural beauty hidden behind the makeup she clearly doesn't need. And yet, there's something darkening her features and removing the youth her freckles bring to her face. There's something haunting her eyes, ageing her before me. And it causes the first stirings of fear to sit heavy in my stomach.
"Wine?", she offers as she allows me into the room, as the door clicks shut. Trapping me in this room, until she has said her piece. Trapping us together until she reveals to me the reasons I am here.
She watches as my expressions twist into a rejection of her offering. She see's the 'no' before it has time to form on my lips. I've driven here, and I intend to drive away too. And I want a clear head. Want to be able to remember every detail of the conversation that I know is to come. Something tells me i'm going to need to have a clear recollection of the words she speaks tonight. She watches me shake my head, silently answering her even though I know I don't need too. She can see it all. She shrugs, seemingly accepting my response, before pouring two large glasses of an overly expensive red and extending one out to me. I don't know whether to accept. She knows I don't want one, so I don't understand. Don't know whether this is some kind of test, some kind of game that I am yet to receive the rules too. Of course, my thoughts play out on my face and don't escape her watchful eyes. Cal is so overpowering, so forceful in his observations of people, that I often forget that's she can do it too. Often forget that she's good; sometimes better than him. She moves the glass in my direction again, careful not to spill the contents onto the cream carpet we stand on, and answers the questions I have not voiced.
"Trust me", she sighs quietly as I reach forward and take the glass from her hand that has begun to shake, "you're going to need it".
And I know, from the way her body deflates as she turns away from me, from the way she clutches her own glass like it's a comfort blanket, that I am unprepared. About to be caught completely off guard. I know, that whatever has brought me to her hotel tonight, is not going to be good. Know that whatever has her calling me instead of Cal, is about to change everything.
She explains everything she has been doing these last few weeks. Explains how she's pushed him towards me. Feined a hatred and disgust that she knew would intrigue him enough to keep me around. Used my presence to ensure he is not alone. Ensure that she is replaced. I should feel used. Feel like a pawn in some twisted game I never asked to be part of. But I don't. Because it wasn't meant to be mallicious. Wasn't mean to cause me pain. She did it to save her him. Save her partner. Did it to save a man who doesn't even know he needs to be saved.
She explain to me why it has to be this way. Tells me about the promise she made to him years ago. The promise that she would not leave him, the way others had done before her. The promise that allowed her to put him back together. The promise that keeps him from dissapearing into the dark parts of himself. The promise that keeps him alive. She tells me about his mother. Shares with me the tragic history that he has built his life around. About the damage that she fights daily, in order to keep it from taking over him. And the more she talks about the guilt he carries at being unable to save his mother, the more her words paint a picture of a man who has the fragile heart of a scared little boy, a man who is held together not by glue but by Gillian herself I start to understand why she wants it to be this way. Why she thinks it has to be this way.
But that doesn't mean she's right. Doesn't mean this is the only way. I try and argue with her. Try and make her see that there are other options. Other's way to help him throught this. Other ways to protect him from the pain she knows her permenant absence is going to cause.
"You can't do this to him. He'll never forgive you", I shout, the words falling from my mouth before I can stop it. But it's falling on deaf ears. I can feel it in the way she doesn't flinch. Doesn't try to shy away from my outburst. It's in the way she holds us suspended in silence long after my voice stops ecohing round the room. In the way she lets the air hang heavy between us. But then she speaks, and everything shifts.
"I don't need him to forgive me", she whispers. "I just need him to survive".
She sounds so broken. So fragile. So unlike the woman I've come to know over the last few weeks. So unlike the woman they all worship. The woman Cal lives for. And in that split second I know. Know that I will do all that she asks. Everything I can to fulfil her wishes. Because she's breaking, right in front of me, and I am the only person around to catch the pieces of her she wishes to leave behind. The only person to catch the pieces of who she is, before they disapear and are lost to the world forever. The only person she thinks strong enough to carry her through his grief. The only person she thinks is able to take the pieces of her, take her decisions, and use them to keep him alive.
Glad this section is finished! This fic started with Gillian picking her replacement, and while it deals with Cal and Emily and all their grief, it does have to circle back to Wallowski in order for her motivations to become clear. But god, trying to get inside Wallowski's head long enough to get a decent chapter is hard enough, without the added darkness that this Gillian is bringing to everything. Hope you all enjoyed and that I managed to create an interaction that was believable between the two that we barely saw together!