Spoilers: After cattle incident and snippets of S2 episodes
Disclaimer: A big emphatic 'NO'! I do not own or even have these characters on loan!
Pairings: Caitlin and Eric
Summary: Eric has arrived back in town and put a wrench in Caitlin and Will's relationship. Caitlin and Eric find themselves drawn to each other and having to deal with the emotions that were left unresolved when he moved away. They must deal with the future and whether they will remain in each other's lives, or will college and other things get in the way?
Author's notes: WHOA! SPOOKY! Here I am again! Just think of it as a christmas present! Although I guess at the end of the chapter you might not look at it that way blink

Chapter Forty

"And I think we should just call it quits." Eric leaned against the wall, which served as a headboard, as he sat on his bed. He had been going over the speech in his head a few times before Griffin showed up at his door.

"Where did you come up with this brilliant idea?" Griffin rolled his eyes and groaned. He had been watching Eric distracted by something for the past week and now he knew what it was. Now he just wanted to be in the dark again.

"Long distance thing isn't working Griffin." Eric felt a lump develop in his throat as he worked hard to get those words out. "It's just like I had said to Caitlin before we went off to college," he sighed. "There's just too many things that get in the way."

"In your paranoid, psychotropic brain frenzy?"

"I'm not imagining things, Griff." Eric shook his head and slid off his bed. He wished he were. "She went away for the weekend with a bunch of guys."

"Two guys, to be more specific and her roommates."

The numbers didn't matter. She went off with them and without a thought. It wasn't a good sign - not at all. "Do you think they're going to see the distinction?" he scoffed. "She went with them."

"You're really losing, man." Griffin could not believe the baloney his best friend was blowing. "I mean, worse than usual."

"What are you saying?"

"You're getting way too insecure about Caitlin, which by the way is such a me thing to do that it should warn you about what you're thinking, and you're going to throw away a good thing in attempt to pre-empt her rejection of you."

"You know that thing about Psych 101 I mentioned before," Eric raised a incredulous brow, "yeah, taking it way too seriously."

"Look at what you're saying!" Griffin hated to point out the flaws of his delusions, but as his best friend it was his job. "She has not mentioned or even hinted at feeling different about you since you've talked to her," he sighed. "Plus I know for a fact that she's crazy for you - totally in love."

"We've never said 'I love you'," Eric said hastily.

"Close enough."

"No. It's not." The hackles on Eric's neck raised as Griffin seemed bent on convincing him he was wrong for making the hardest decision he had faced since he told Caitlin about his feelings.

"Well from watching the two of you," Griffin gazed at him pointedly, "do your little dance, it seems to me, that it's pretty much a done deal."

"You think so?" Eric banged the back of his head against the wall. He wanted to believe what Griffin said. He wanted to believe that trusting in their friendship and what they had developed over the summer could bridge the distance.

"Yeah."

-&-

"How do I tell him?" Caitlin whispered those words over and over as she paced in her apartment. Her head was spinning with images of several versions of conversations that would arise from what she had to tell Eric.

"You don't."

Caitlin's head jerked up to see Lane leaning against her doorway. The petite Asian girl had a dry, look of disbelief on her face. "I have to tell him," she said distractedly.

"That you kissed another guy?" she scoffed. "Oh yeah, that'll go over real well."

"No," Caitlin shook her head in protest, "that he kissed me."

"Same diff." Her roommate strolled into her room and splayed herself across Caitlin's bed.

"No, it's not." Caitlin had gone over the scene time and time again in her head. Had she given him any signals? Had she led him on? And everytime, she came back with the same answer. "No," she stated firmly. "I didn't want it."

"And that's supposed to make a difference?" Lane shook her head and snorted. "Hey, if that's what keeps you from feeling guilty as hell, then go right ahead."

"Hey, I was just talking to Jeff and he kissed me." Caitlin could not believe she had to explain this to Lane. She had been right there. She had been sitting on the beach with Jeff and during their conversation he leaned over and kissed her. No hints or warnings.

"No need to explain. He's cute enough and good ole whatshisname is over two hundred miles away."

"No!" Caitlin spun around and glared at Lane. "You know that's not what happened!"

"Well I'm just saying that you shouldn't be crushed if you don't end up with your boytoy at the end of this all out confessional." Sitting up, Lane swung her legs over the side of the bed and shrugged. "No guy likes to hear the girl they've been pining for kissed another guy," she explained.

"Stop. Eric's not like that."

"You kiss a guy when you're across the country and he's not going to take offense? What Fantasy Island are you living in? You may live in Montana, but even guys there have egos."

"So what you're telling me is that I've got to lie to him?" Caitlin looked at her in digust.

"I'm not asking you to."

"Yes you are!"

"Have it your way. I'm telling you to lie for the sake of your relationship, which you seem to 'cherish' so much."

The way Lane managed to say it made her feel like a fool for even thinking of even mentioning the kiss to Eric, but she knew that if she didn't, it would consume her. So she prayed that it wasn't a huge gamble that Lane was making it sound like - telling Eric that a guy she had gone away with kissed her.

She prayed that he understood.

-&-

"You what?" He didn't expect to have this conversation that night. In fact, Griffin had so convinced him that he was insane for doubting Caitlin's feelings for him that he was going to apologize to her for the way he had been distancing himself. But this...this was too much.

"Jeff kissed me." The words felt like paste in her mouth.

They had been making surface conversation when she found the words just tumbling out of her mouth. It had hit him like a wrecking ball. She could just imagine his face right now, scrunched up in anger and betrayal.

"You're joking, right?"

"I didn't want it. It just happened."

"It. Just. Happened." Those words brought no comfort to him. Eric thought they possibly might. Maybe he had misunderstood the whole thing. "How did it...just happened?"

The stinging accusation rang clearly through the telephone receiver. Caitlin hated it. Part of her wished she had taken Lane's advice. At the rate this conversation was going, what her roommate had predicted would come to light.

"You know this sounds eerily familiar."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin was thrown by his odd comment.

"Will and you broke up after we 'just kissed'." Eric rested his head against the payphone, as if he didn't, he would surely fall down from the immensity of Caitlin's unexpected confession. "I should have known..." he whispered to himself. "Karma."

"W-what..." Caitlin was trying to follow Eric's line of thinking, until it finally dawned on her. Eric believed that he had come between Will and her that this was somehow cosmic payback. "I-it's not the same," she protested. "I don't even know Jeff."

"Except that you felt you knew him well enough to go away on a weekend with him." The words just came rushing out. He hadn't even meant them as an accusation.

"Eric!" Caitlin was in shock. She thought he knew her better than that. "You know it's not like that."

"I told Griffin it was bound to happen."

"You told Griffin what?" Caitlin suddenly felt her face begin to flush. "What have you and Griffin been talking about?" she asked suspiciously.

"It's...someone seeing another person..." Eric knew how amazing Caitlin was; it was bound to happen. It was inevitable.

"Are you calling me some sort of tramp or slut?" A bitter aftertaste was left in her mouth. She never imagined having to ask Eric something so demeaning.

"It's not your fault."

As soon as those words left his mouth, he knew he had said the wrong thing.

"Damn right it's not my fault," Caitlin found herself now standing in her room, off of her bed, which she had been sitting on. "And I can't believe you just called me that! Just what do you think I'm doing here in New York?" she spat into the phone. "A couple of months in New York and I'm willing to sell myself off to the highest bidder?"

"No!" Eric cried out, knowing what he was trying to say wasn't coming out right. "I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean you were that"

"Well what do you mean?"

Eric tried to piece together in his head what he was trying to say. You're a beautiful, smart girl, who has a lot to offer. I don't deserve you and I understand why guys are after you. But none of those things formed in his mouth. "Caitlin, I think we should end it," he blurted out.

Tactless and blunt. Eric hated how it sounded. He hated the words probably more than Caitlin did right at that moment.

"W-hat?" Her voice hitched as she felt her breath catch in her throat. Caitlin fell back onto her bed and stared blankly at the white wall in front of her, not even seeing the wall at all.

"The long distance thing isn't working." The words seemed lame in the light of their conversation. It seemed like an excuse.

"For you?"

"For us."

Caitlin shook her head as the voice over the phone seemed distant and cold - not even broken at the idea. "Is this what you and Griffin were discussing all this time?" she asked in disbelief. "I-is this what you've been thinking about the entire time I told you how much I missed you?"

"I-I..." Eric felt his chest tight as her broken voice squeezed his heart. This was harder than he had imagined. In his mind everything seemed to happen mechanically almost.

"How can you say...?" Caitlin couldn't believe this was really happening. Eric was ending it with her on the phone. It seemed so Hollywood dramatic.

"It's too much of a strain," Eric interrupted her, pushing on knowing that it needed to be done. The kiss with the mystery guy had been evidence of just that.

"You mean you're taking the easy way out," she accused.

"No."

"Yes!" Caitlin shouted into the phone, once again standing up, as the blood rushed through her veins. Shaking her head she didn't believe that he wanted this. She knew she didn't. "I thought you could understand," she said, feeling like the tears in her throat were going to choke her.

"I do." He understood perfectly that they weren't ready for any type of commitment.

"But just the same you're calling us quits?"

"Caitlin, I just..." Before he could finish she cut him off.

"Don't." Caitlin gritted her teeth, knowing that she couldn't hear his pathetic excuses as to why this was right. "I don't think I could stomach another word out of your mouth," she whispered. Closing her eyes she pressed the end button on the black cordless receiver.

Eric heard the dull hum of the dialtone in his hear. Carefully he placed it back on its hook. Staring at the hallway payphone, he wished he could just pull the phone right out of the wall. Why? Why did you force my hand like this?

Caitlin threw the phone against the wall, as she slid down to the floor; she had succumbed to the tears. You weren't supposed to do this. You were supposed to believe me.