We are getting closer to the end, but what kind of end that would be?

Eteri: the papers were just, sadly, very depressing things such as her will and testament, possibly things about what to do with the company and so on. That was why Cal felt the pain in her asking him to get them


For the second time in less than two days, Cal let himself in Gillian's place using the copy of the keys she had given him when she had first moved in.

In case of emergency, she had said then, and boy had they just gone through one big one!

He hadn't been inside since he had come snooping around only to find her gone, as far as he knew nobody had since the FBI had searched the place and that was why he was there. Reynolds had left the office with the hard drive tucked away in his pocket and instructed Cal to stay put and wait. The scientist had easily come to hate that combination of words, they went against every fibre of his being and he fully expected to be suffering from PTSD for a long time upon hearing them, but he had done as told. Eventually the office had come alive with employees going about their business, wisely leaving him alone and undisturbed in his office with the only reasonable exception of Torres who had come around once to ask for updates.

Then, after hours of idle sitting at his desk and staring down at the brown envelope and dodging Emily's calls, Cal had finally received a call from Reynolds. He hadn't expected the agent to tell him what was in the drive, it must have been obviously something secret and dangerous that most people wouldn't have wanted to touch with a ten foot pole, and he hadn't even tried to ask. The most important thing was that, whatever information was in there, according to Reynolds now that it was in safe hands the coast was clear for Gillian to come back.

Reynolds hadn't gone into details but he had ensured Cal that he had reached Foster and delivered the news, and that she was on her way back home. Instead of lifting his spirit and making him feel relieved that the nightmare was over, the news had thrown him into a confused state of mind in which his emotions swung from anger to happiness, from fear to anticipation. Restless, barely trusting himself with driving, Cal had felt that there was only one place he could go while waiting - yet again, waiting - for things to unfold.

The FBI had done a decent job not messing up Gillian's house more than necessary, but they hadn't put any effort in leaving the place decent either. Cal could hardly keep his own house clean and tidy at times but in that late afternoon he rolled up his sleeves and got to it, starting with the bedroom. As familiar as he was with her place, as at ease and welcomed as he had always felt there, it did feel weird at first to go around opening drawers and cabinets looking for bed linen or cleaning supplies, but after a while he slipped into the mindset that he was at least - finally - doing something helpful for her.

He spent a couple of hours between the bedroom and the living room, then he came up with a temporary fix for the broken glass panel in the backdoor. Huffing and puffing, cursing Gillian's choice of luggage, he dragged the suitcases to the bedroom and gave a last look at the room, considering he had done his best there, then he went back to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. He wasn't surprised to find it nearly empty, Gillian was a conscious woman - oh, the irony! - and had probably done that on purpose when she had left for her holiday. The freezer on the other hand was decently packed, as well as the pantry, which meant he didn't need to take a trip to the grocery store.

It was ridiculous, really. He had no idea when Gillian would be back, if at all despite what Reynolds had said, yet he didn't want to take the chance to leave and miss her homecoming. So he just got a couple of things out of the freezer, just in case, then took a beer from the fridge and went over to the couch in the living room. He sat down and took off his shoes, Gillian's voice ringing in head with the strong warning not to put his feet on the coffee table, then he leaned back and took a long sip of the beer. Cal was well aware he was the embodiment of the concept of making yourself at home, but in that moment chilling in Gillian's living room was the only thing keeping him from driving around the city aimlessly looking for her or bothering Reynolds with phone calls.

He sat there in silence for a while, drinking every now and then and staring at the switched off TV. That was not an option, he found most TV worthless to begin with and despite everything he did not need mind-numbing distractions. Eventually, after he had to get up and get a second beer, Cal sat back down and huffed while slowly reaching for the jacket he had previously thrown on the backrest of the couch. From one of the pockets he retrieved the brown envelope Gillian had left for him in the safe, still sealed and now oddly folded so that it could fit in the confined space, then tossed it on the coffee table in front of him. It wasn't his first staring contest with the papers inside the envelope, he had been looking at that ominous object for hours back at the office, but Cal still couldn't push himself to open it and take a look. Part of him was trying to convince him that he didn't need to anymore, that since Gillian was coming back he really didn't have to put himself through the pain of reading what her arrangements might have been. Another part of him however, much louder and persuasive, was simply just too mad about it all to give in to Gillian's outrageous request.


A doorbell was ringing, somewhere. It was loud and annoying and insistent and for the love of God, could they just stop it already!

Suddenly awake and in a terrible mood, Cal got up from the couch immediately alert and took a second to focus on where he was. Somehow he had fallen asleep with his head thrown back, which left him with a stiff neck of epic proportions, completely losing track of time and now, as he heard the bell ring again, deeply infuriated. He hadn't rested properly in two days and being woken up like that did funny things to his brain. Besides, he was on a reverse stakeout and the last thing he wanted was for someone to come along and ruin the one moment of solace he hoped to have after days of constant worry.

Growling against anyone he imagined being on the other side of the door, Cal furiously paced barefooted to the entrance and swung the door open, yelling "What?!" at a very surprised Gillian standing right there in front of him.

Cal's whole body tensed when he saw her, denying the brain's command to just give up and pass out. He still had his hand on the handle and felt it seize around the knob as if the limb had a life of its own, then realised he was doing it for support. Cal looked at her, at Gillian oddly standing there with a shyness she had no business having for wanting to come into her own house, and even if he had been told she was coming back he couldn't believe his own eyes.

"I-"

It was just a syllable, not even a fully formed word but it was the first thing Cal heard her say in person in nearly two weeks and it nearly knocked him off his feet. He felt his breath itch and the hand on the knob squeezed so hard that his fingers started to ache, he blinked a couple of times to make sure she was indeed there but aside from that he couldn't move a muscle. Gillian stared back in return, still taken by the surprise of seeing him in her house, shaking her absently as she tried again to speak.

"I'm sorry, I- I think I lost my keys."

Gillian finished the sentence and stepped forward, entering her own house with shy steps. Cal watched her coming in, barely breathing, feeling like he had just seen a mythical creature, thinking it must have been all in his mind if she thought she could so casually walk in as if nothing had happened. Then he grabbed her as she passed by him, his hand finally let go of the door and caught hers, pulling her back and spinning her around. There was no protest from her, no fighting back. Gillian felt him command her to move and followed the physical direction, unable and unwilling to resist, and suddenly found herself engulfed in his arms. Immediately, obeying to a deep seated instinct, Gillian returned the gesture and hugged him back, burying her face in his chest and listening to his heart beating fast and loud. She felt Cal shake, she heard him sob softly and felt his arms tightening around her even more as he sunk his face in her hair, and she knew he wasn't going to let her go easily.

"I'm sorry, Cal." He squeezed even harder, he was nearly choking her but Gillian didn't dare to push back. Instead she moved her hand to the back of his head, pulling him closer in her own way. "It's over now. It's done."

She didn't think there was a right thing to say given the situation, but as it turned out it was way too easy to say the wrong one. Cal tensed when she spoke those additional words and pulled away from her suddenly, still holding her shoulders tight but looking at her like she had just said the most hideous thing in the world. It wasn't that far off, of all the things she could have said Cal did feel that was the most insane one really, but before he could let her have a piece of his mind he noticed a grimace on her face that had nothing to do with his own scolding look. Then he looked down, she was still wearing those ridiculous burglar clothes she had been wearing for days now but even though they were all black or in dark colours Cal didn't fail to notice a darker spot on the fabric by her left side.

"You're hurt," he managed to mumble then.

"I was- Ouch!"

Deaf to her denial, Cal had gone ahead and touched the part where the fabric was darker, just lightly pressing his hand there, which made her flinch in pain. Cal didn't move his hand away and kept his eyes on her, a hard look that didn't soften all that much when she still tried to dismiss his concern by averting her eyes.

"C'mon," Cal said then, taking her hand and starting off to the living room. "Let's get you fixed up."

Gillian didn't try to stop him, she was too tired to even try and she knew it would have probably been counterproductive and she didn't want him to drag her across her own house. As they made their way to the couch, Gillian looked around and didn't fail to notice that the space around her looked a lot better than the last time she had been in, then glanced at Cal who had gone to the kitchen to get the first aid kit after having forcefully parked her on the couch.

"I'm ok, Cal." She tried to reassure him, watching his hands shake lightly because of the emotions he was trying to keep at bait.

"Quit stalling and let me see."

His response left no room for countering, his voice was a lot steadier than his hands and when he looked at her again Gillian had the feeling she'd better play along. Slowly, knowing it was going to be an uncomfortable manoeuvre, she opened the zipper of the hoodie and took it off, revealing a light grey t-shirt underneath. She heard Cal's gasp when he saw the ripped fabric, and nearly moan in his own kind of pain when she lifted the torn fabric just enough for him to see the cut on her hip.

Cal immediately remembered the call from the night before, when he heard the pain in her voice and she had tried to brush it off. She hadn't managed to get him off her trail then and he wasn't going to let her live it down now that she was there with him, and he made sure she could see the disappointment in his face. Then he took a deep breath, needing to calm himself down before playing nurse and taking care of the wound.

It was nothing serious, the blood was dried up and the cut was not too deep, but that was besides the point. Gillian watched him clean up the wound and apply some gauze, his measured and delicate gestures in contrast with his tensed and contrite face. She wanted to say something, she knew she had to, but she had the feeling that Cal had to be the one giving her the right cue.

Cal finished the medication then picked up everything and went back to the kitchen, and this time Gillian didn't wait for him to dictate her next move and stood up to follow him. In the kitchen, Cal moved around seamlessly to fetch her a glass of water which he put on the table, then gathered some of the food items he had found in his previous inspection. Gillian saw what he was doing and opened her mouth to say something but he shot her down with such an intense glare that she didn't know what to make of it.

"You need to eat," Cal said then, reinforcing the point he had silently made.

Gillian decided to give up and let him have it the way he wanted for the time being. She was tired, exhausted, in desperate need of a shower and yes, starved. The adrenaline of the situation she had been through might have been on the way down but her mind was still too wrapped up in the events of the previous days and she was struggling to adjust back to reality. She had not expected to find Cal there and she wasn't mentally ready to face him. Her plan had been to get home, look after herself and catch up on some much needed rest before calling him. Him being there skipped about a dozen careful and calculated steps she had planned for them to go through together, instead she was in a battle against him she had hardly a chance to win if she didn't play by his rules.

So she sat down at the table and drank her water, waiting for Cal to put some food in front of her. He had some for himself too but after waiting for a few minutes for him to join her at the table she accepted that wasn't going to happen. She ate, her body rejoicing for the nutrients and not caring much about what it was, while Cal just stood by the sink munching over a sandwich. Gillian couldn't even be mad at him for creepily staring at her because in fact he was looking everywhere but, his eyes just darting around as if they were looking for something interesting enough to land on.

Eventually, much to her stomach's satisfaction, her plate was clear and Cal refilled her water, even though she was hoping for something a little stronger. And once Cal placed the plate in the sink and turned around, this time looking right at her, Gillian knew she would have really needed it.

"Alright then," Cal hissed, hands in his pockets and head tilted on the side. "Let's hear it, Foster."


Hopefully this one is going to evoke some reaction... I am working on two more stories, one is shaping up to be rather long and complex so I hope all that work goes somewhere.

Is Cal mad at Gillian, or too happy she's back and safe to be overwhelmed? Is he overreacting? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Chapter 11: Pandora's box