iii. Hearing
She couldn't remember one second of sleep, just thoughts, considerations, worries. All accompanied by the sound of his even breathing right next to her ear. The sound she couldn't forget, as peaceful as the quiet before the storm. Or the quiet after the storm. Or the quiet in the middle of the eye of the tornado. She wished something of that peacefulness would have remained. More than just the simple sound she clung to now.
Minutes went by, hours then. The morning came before her eyes had even closed.
And now she sat here with a cup of cold coffee. The clock above the kitchen table said something about eight and maybe she had about an hour and a half left before people at the Group would start worrying about her, because nobody knew about any appointments or reasons why she wouldn't be behind her desk by nine at the latest. It's how everybody knew her. Responsible and loyal to a fault.
But she couldn't and didn't want to talk to anyone. She couldn't even move. Or breathe.
She decided to call his office and let him know. At this time of the day and after that night there was hardly any danger that he would actually pick up, and letting her words go straight to voicemail would relieve her of the decisions she didn't want to make.
So she dialed his number and was startled when he actually picked up after just a few seconds.
"Lightman." His voice sounded weary and tired, as if he hadn't even left his office. As if the couch in his study had been his den for the night—there where the smell of the two of them still clung to the fabric.
She didn't say anything, because she didn't know what. She wasn't prepared for that.
"Gill?" he eventually asked when the silence threatened to tear apart the line.
"I'm not coming in today," she recited one of the sentences she had prepared in her head before. She had no idea what would come—whether it concerned this call or her life in general.
"Alright," he replied a few seconds later and there was a hint of the panic in his voice that she had seen on his face the night before. She was somehow surprised that he didn't try to hide it any better, but maybe he just couldn't. Maybe she even wanted this panic to exist, because it meant that she was still important to him. There were moment where she had doubted that in the past. Fleeting moment, but moments existent nevertheless.
And those moments of doubt were enough to know that something had to change.
"I'm not sure I'll come in tomorrow," she continued. And the day after tomorrow. And next week. And if I can ever do this again.
"You take as much time as you want," he granted and she realized that he had no clue what to say either. Cal Lightman, never lost for words, was now forcing out every single one of them. Every damn word.
Up until now she hadn't given too much significance to words when it came to him. She knew him. It were feeling that counted, deeds. Up until yesterday. Up until he had spoken those sentences that he had really meant.
"I'm not sure I can go on like this."
"With me?"
"With everything."
"This isn't only about last night?" he asked, but maybe it was more of a conclusion. A conclusion that he had reached in the last few hours and that hurt him too as she could hear.
"I have to take care of myself. At one point."
"What can I do?" he wanted to know helplessly and hadn't all of this been so incredibly bitter, she would have felt for him.
His pain was her pain as well; the one that tightened her ribcage and got her all choked up, but she started believing in her sentence and repeated it word for word in her head. I have to take care of myself.
"Gillian, what can I do?" he asked again and they probably both knew right in this moment that there were no answers left. His voice clung desperately to her silence and she understood. And yet she also didn't understand at the same time.
She understood that he really didn't want to lose her. That those sentences yesterday might have been quicker than his heart, when the words left his lips without consideration. But she didn't understand why he pushed her away like that again and again, just to pull her back to him afterwards and never let go. Up until the next moment when he forgot about all of that.
"I don't know," she just whispered and shook her head, because everything seemed so lost and pointless. It might have been a tear that left this tingling sensation on her cheek, but she didn't dare investigating it with her fingers and gaining assurance.
She could hear him giving up and it broke her heart, as if it had still been intact until now. "Okay, okay," he mumbled and she could only think again and again that this wasn't the man she knew. Cal Lightman didn't give up, didn't relent, didn't let go. She almost wanted to bring him to his senses, but maybe it was only good that he finally felt her pain as well. Her usually soothing words failed to be spoken.
For some seconds neither of them said anything, while she thought about how to end this conversation without tearing her heart apart for good. Her choice was a work topic; in fact harmless, but probably loaded with so much more after last night's words.
"Can you take care of the IMF case?"
"Gill," he tried again and she realized that her words hadn't even reached him. Far away his thoughts were searching for a solution, but actually he knew just as well as she did that there wasn't any. No simple and certainly no obvious one.
"I can call Loker and ask him to—," she continued, but he cut her off before she could get lost in indifferent topics entirely.
"Gill," he started anew, "as awful as all of that had been last night, I just want you to know that it meant something to me nevertheless."
Her heart sank even deeper, leaving her with this feeling of crippling emptiness when she didn't even think that was still possible. That the broken urgency in his voice would hit her open wounds right where it hurt the most.
She breathed. And breathed. "You told that Wallowski after your date as well?"
He breathed; disheartened. "I didn't sleep with her."
"But you would have. If only to rub it in afterwards." She thought back to all the moments he had done just that, his reasons not always obvious. She thought of long legs and temptation, of his fingers only tracing her shivering skin a few hours ago. Of fights and disappointments, of harsh words and silent forgiveness.
Often they were blonde, sometimes brunette, but never like her. They were everything she was not in fact. Dangerous and full of risk, puzzling and mysterious, daring and carefree.
They were everything that he was looking for and they brought out everything in him that she liked the least.
The tear she had already feared, now finally fell down to the table, followed by a choked sob. She put her hand over the receiver, but it was already too late. He heard.
"You mean so much more to me than that," he threw in with a soft-spoken voice and even if he had avoided her last statement that way, it was so much more honest than everything else he could have said.
But she just couldn't do this anymore and hung up. What remained in her ears was his desperate voice, his warm breath and in between the soundscape of happier days.
