Need a Miracle
Three
Calleigh starts awake, and she lifts her head up from her knees.
Dynamite is playing on her iPod, and she yawns a bit and she turns it off and takes the earbuds out. She hadn't meant to doze off, but she was unexpectedly emotionally exhausted and raw from the argument she had with Eric. What's more, it was an argument accusing her of the same old thing, how she didn't talk to him about things that were bothering her, how she closed up the last few months. It is true, but she doesn't need to be reminded, especially not by him. It's yet another thing that puts a wedge between them, their friendship.
She peers through the semi-darkness and sees that Eric has dozed off.
She looks at her watch, and sees that it is only a little after nine o'clock.
She sighs, feeling a bit stiff, and she pushes herself up and begins to stretch and walk around the small space a bit. She lets down her hair as she points and flexes her toes. Her ankle pops, and she grimaces at the sound. She works out her knees and then she paces.
Eric awakens, and he rubs his eyes before checking his watch. He sees Calleigh walking around, and he thinks that's a good idea. His feet have fallen asleep, and he gets up slowly, and Calleigh steps aside as he begins to walk the stiffness off. They pass each other as they take turns about the vault, avoiding eye contact at all costs. He can tell that she is still pissed at him by the thin line her lips have formed. He hates that their friendly conversation dissolved into an argument, into accusations on his part. She really didn't need that, not while they are in this situation together.
Eric decides that he will ignore her request for him to not talk to her.
"Cal, I-"
"What?" She asks harshly.
"I want to apologize to you," he says, sincerity in his voice.
"You really hurt my feelings, Eric," she says in a shaky voice. "The fact that you did it intentionally makes it worse."
"I know," he agrees. "You were right. I was being an asshole and I'm sorry."
It takes her a few moments to respond.
"Apology accepted."
She knows she can't stay mad at him for long.
After successfully loosening up their stiff joints and muscles they both sit down again.
Calleigh turns her iPod back on.
The music cuts through the leftover layers of contention that has settled between them.
"Is that the theme song from Grey's Anatomy?" He asks.
"Mmhm."
"What's the name of it?"
"Cozy in the Rocket."
"All this time, I never knew the name of the song."
"Oh my God, you're late on that one, Eric," she chuckles.
"I don't watch the show," he says. "So I wasn't that interested. But Teresa is a freak for that show. It's scary. She can tell you what happened on the show from the very first season to now. She knows all the trivia, all the characters...she even knows all the medical jargon."
"Wow. She's dedicated."
"You have no idea," he says, rolling his eyes. "Kind of like you are about The Marrying Kind."
Calleigh laughs, and he feels his heart jump in his chest at the sound. It's been too long since he's heard a genuine laugh. Too bad the lighting is bad, because he wants to see her face, see if it has banished the dullness in her eyes.
"It's addictive!" She giggles. "There's just something so entertaining about watching desperate women vying for getting the cake and eating it too. The money sweetens the deal."
"Not all of them were out for the money," he says. "Remember that case we had? The uh...Carlson case? She loved the guy."
"He would have hurt her in the end," she resolves. "He was a jerk. She was way too innocent and sweet. She...hadn't given herself over yet, if you know what I mean."
"I got it."
"That Martin guy, the host, gave me the creeps. Bleh! I feel gross just thinking about him. Ew!"
Eric laughs. "He was that bad?"
"Worse," she grimaces. "He was a louse."
Eric grins.
He wonders what everyone is doing right now.
Their phones are probably ringing and vibrating off the hook.
There is probably some work party going on right about now, or a (rigged) gift exchange. Every year the Secret Santa thing goes wrong; they do solve crimes for a living, so it's nothing to figure out who has who for a Secret Santa. Last year, Calleigh could hardly contain herself once she figured out that Jesse, rest his soul, was her Secret Santa. She blurted it out over lunch, unable to keep the secret, and Jesse just shrugged it off. He got her a nice gift; a foot care set from Bath and Body Works. He didn't mind going in there, and it miffed Ryan and Walter because the women in the lab swooned over him even more, Calleigh included. The secret that Jesse didn't know was that Calleigh didn't want for anything, and she is easy to please.
"That is so sweet, Jesse!" Calleigh exclaimed as she hugged him. "I love it!"
"You're welcome," Jesse said. "I know you like that kind of stuff."
"I do, I do," she smiled. "Thank you. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas."
Maxine opened up her gift from Walter, and she frowned.
"Toe socks?"
"You know I don't know you that well," Walter defended. "You can't go wrong with socks."
"That's foul, man," Ryan said handing his gift to Natalia.
Eric looked at Calleigh questioningly, both of them wondering how it was that every year that they've done this that Ryan and Natalia end up getting each other.
Natalia opened up her gift, and it was a basket full of products from Genevive, the hottest day spa in the city. Maxine, Sam, and Calleigh all gathered around Natalia like bees to a hive, wanting to see what the basket contained, all of them instantly jealous.
"I don't like you," Maxine frowned as she picked up the lotion and smelled it. "Mm, this smells so good."
"Ooh, smell this one," Natalia said.
"Oh my God," Calleigh marveled. "That's heavenly. You're going to be boneless."
"I know," Natalia smiled haughtily.
Ryan opened up his gift, and it was a subscription to Netflix.
Calleigh went back over to Eric, who leaned in and whispered:
"This is so rigged."
"I know," Calleigh pouted. "They always get good stuff!"
"Yeah, and I get a damn gift card for Olive Garden," Eric lamented. "I hate that place. Worst gift exchange ever!"
"You Scrooge," Calleigh teased.
Ryan and Natalia are the masterminds behind switching people off and making sure that they get what they want.
"Natalia's party is probably in full swing," Calleigh comments.
"I forgot she was throwing a Christmas party," he says.
"Yeah, she texted me yesterday. She's going to do a gift exchange."
"She really is a sick person," Eric says incredulously. "This will be the third year she and Ryan have rigged the Secret Santa thing."
Calleigh chuckles.
"It's true...you know it's true, Cal."
"I know," she grins. "But...it's kind of cute, though. You know they've had a thing for each other for years."
"Still, I hate getting crappy gifts, though."
"Well, maybe they'll be fair this year," Calleigh smirks. "Especially if Natalia's going to give Ryan some Secret Santa lovin' later on tonight."
Eric covers his eyes.
"Oh God!" He groans. "Mental image. I'm gonna need a frickin' lobotomy!"
"What? We're adults and friends..."
"I know, but...gah! God..."
"Oh please, I'm sure everyone saw mental images of us all the time when we were together."
"Jesus Calleigh, stop!"
She rolls her eyes. "You big baby."
How she can be so comfortable with this conversation is beyond him. To him, imagining his closest friends having sex is right on up there with picturing parents having sex. It's just not pleasant, or pretty. Eric recalls one time when he was about twelve or thirteen, he came home from school early with a stomach flu, and he thought his parents had been expecting him. He went upstairs, and gravitated to his parents' bedroom, and not thinking, he pushed the door open and his parents were doing some...questionable things, and he threw up again on the carpet, an infraction, on top of the not knocking, that earned him a trip to his school stadium to run steps as punishment nearly a week later when his mother felt he was well enough to endure it.
That is why he just can't take it.
But he's quite the hypocrite because he spent about two years imagining Calleigh having sex with him, which wasn't fair to her, really.
"You saw your parents one time, didn't you?"
"Yeah, and it was...horrifying."
"Well, at least your bedroom was down the hall," Calleigh sighs. "Mine was right next to my parents' room."
"I'm sorry."
"Luckily for me, we had pretty thick walls," Calleigh smiles.
"Anyway," he says. "So I don't puke, what makes you think Ryan and Natalia are together like that?"
Calleigh sighs. "They've been...different around each other. I think they've been closer ever since that explosion last year. Emotionally, she depends on him. C'mon, don't tell me you haven't noticed too."
"They have been getting closer lately," he concedes.
Calleigh has seen the interaction between the two, and she thinks that they are good for each other. They both wear their hearts on their sleeves, and Ryan is just a good guy period. It's obvious, from the way they rig the Secret Santa, that they know each other well, and care deeply about each other. Lately though, Calleigh has been watching them a little closer, and she's seen the way Ryan eyes Natalia, she's witnessed them sitting together, chatting and occasionally letting their fingers twine together, or caress over each other's hands, or trace palms.
Eric has seen much more subtle signs.
He has seen how they gravitate toward each other, how Ryan now touches Natalia on her lower back with gentleness and comfort. He's seen Natalia looking happier lately, more at peace, and she always lights up whenever she sees Ryan.
If they are together, he will be happy for them, because they deserve to have a life and to be content. Relationships can be stabilizers; they can block out the craziness of work, obligations, and other responsibilities because all that matters is the person you love. It's about safety, and certainty.
Eric is pretty sure that Ryan gives Natalia both, which she needs after what she went through in her first marriage. Even the most beautiful, intelligent women can have ugliness in their lives.
"I think it's a love match," Calleigh swoons with a giggle.
"Work has become quite the soap opera."
"Whatever helps us cope."
"True. But meddling in our coworkers' lives isn't exactly the most kosher coping strategy."
"It's not meddling," she says defensively. "It's...drawing inferences based on initial-"
"Observation of an active scene," he finishes with her.
She smiles. "Forensic Procedures 5801."
"Forensic Protocol 7302."
She is liking this moment of levity between them. Right now, things seem more normal between them than they have been in months, despite the fact that, well, they're locked in a vault, that after walking into a bank that was going to be robbed.
"How much did you hate that class?" Eric asks.
"Lots," Calleigh laments. "And to make things worse, I had this professor from some Eastern Block European country. He had a thick, thick accent, and I literally had to listen to his lectures over and over on my recorder because I couldn't understand him."
Eric laughs.
"And I remember his wife was around my age," she recalls. "Let's see...I was about twenty one...she was a couple of years older than me, and he was like forty five..."
"He wasn't that old, Cal," he says. "When you're that young, you think anything over thirty is old."
"Either way, he was too old for her," she says.
"Hagan was too old for you..."
"That's different," she corrects. "I was twenty five and mature."
"Hmm," he says doubtfully.
"What?"
"You were still wearing hair clips and headbands."
"So? It was my homage to the '90s," she chuckles. "That was a good decade for me. Besides, it's not like you were exactly on the best dressed list, Mr. Dockers."
"Hey, Dockers were a perfect combination of style and moderate pricing, considering what our starting salary was. I was twenty six and still going to my parents' house for a home cooked meal. To say we were mature is a stretch."
"Maybe you and Speed weren't," she grins. "But I was a well-rounded, mature, upright Southern woman," she drawls for effect.
"Hagan was still too old for you."
She shrugs.
She hates to admit that their age difference did have much to do with the disconnect. So much went wrong with that relationship. It was the first one she'd gotten into since college. Her heart was bruised from Jake leaving her, and Hagan seemed like he was good for her. For a while he was; he was thirty nine, going on forty at the time they began dating, and he was good to her, until his ego got in the way. He fell so hard for her, and she knew it, and he began to resent her tenacity and commitment to her work because he wanted to lure her into his idyllic world. He wanted a wife to support, someone that would be waiting for him with a plate of dinner in hand, someone to bear his children. She was young, fresh, naive in some areas of life, and fertile.
She stayed with him because though Calleigh wasn't ready for any of it, and didn't want to turn into a kept woman, it was also very tempting at the same time. The life he wanted to give her seemed secure, seemed like it would be good.
Her independence disillusioned him, among other things that she had nothing to do with...
She bites her bottom lip.
Eric has always had a feeling that something when south in that relationship.
There was something in the way John treated Calleigh, and talked to Calleigh some months in that he didn't like. Hagan never appreciated her work, never showed the slightest interest, and Eric thinks that Hagan may have even resented it. He was controlling, possessive...he stifled Calleigh in the worst of ways.
"What happened between you and Hagan?"
"What do you mean?"
"Cal...I've always suspected that something was off," he confesses. "I...I was always worried about you when you were with him. Speed too."
"You know that Speed and Hagan had a rivalry."
"No, it was different, Cal, and you know it. Something wasn't right..."
"What are you asking me, Eric?"
Eric swallows thickly before speaking.
"D-did he...did he abuse you, Calleigh?"
She pushes her hair behind her ears and she sighs.
He feels his heart clenching and the anger stirring up inside him.
"Tell me about the talk you had with your mom and dad."
He scowls at her then. "How many times do I have to tell you that it's private?"
"Well so is what happened between me and John."
"Two totally different situations, and you know it."
"Yeah? Well speaking ill of the dead isn't exactly something I like to do, Eric."
"It's not speaking ill of the dead," he says. "Dammit, Calleigh, you've perfected your gift of avoidance, and it's pissing me off."
"Here we go again!" She huffs incredulously. "I don't need this bullshit, Eric! I really don't, especially not from you! God! I'm seriously beginning to doubt that we'll make it out of this frickin' vault with our sanity!"
"Maybe you need to lose a little bit of it because you're so tightly wound," he quips.
"Oh, you go to hell!" She hisses venomously.
She crosses her arms over her chest, fuming.
"Why is it that you can make demands but I can't?" He asks.
"Because you have lied to me, you've hidden things from me," she explains bitterly. "You've abused my trust, Eric. To the point where you don't deserve me telling you a damn thing."
He shakes his head.
"You are so self-righteous and self-absorbed it's pathetic."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Cal," he challenges.
She glares at him.
Their eyes have adjusted to the dimness of the vault, and now facial expressions can be seen clearly. He is too riled up to be frightened by her demon-stare.
"You're just saying that to hurt me," she accuses.
"I'm saying that to get you to realize that you bear some responsibility for what's happened between us," he explains. "You're so quick to blame it all on me, but there was two of us in our relationship. Blame one, blame the other."
She looks away, unwilling to accept that.
Eric has lied to her about things that he could have trusted her with. She could have protected him, had his back. It hurt her deeply, and she doesn't think he realizes that. It wasn't just some small, noble act to try and protect her in her mind.
"Eric...that's not the problem," she sighs. "The problem was that you have never acknowledged how the situation looked in my mind. You never stopped to think that, despite the situation, I perceived your actions differently...that I took it a different way. You...disregarded the way I felt because you felt you were protecting me. You felt that I shouldn't be upset, and that upsets me."
His anger dissipates.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly.
"You don't know," she begins in a quavering voice. "What seeing you in the hospital did to me. You...y-you didn't...see me."
Eric doesn't remember much from when he was in the hospital again, and Calleigh never revealed to him what she was feeling then.
"I was a wreck," she sniffles. "I...thought I was going to lose you, and I was sick over the way things had turned out. All I could think was that I could have protected you, but you wouldn't let me. You...you left me behind, and I felt alone."
He feels his heart pounding, and he lets her words sink into him.
"Calleigh...I-I didn't know..."
"When you lied to me about the investigation into the diamonds, I...I tried so hard to forgive you. To trust you again. But it hurt, Eric. I almost lost you again, and all I could think in that moment, when the explosion happened, was that I should've been by your side that whole time. That if it was going to cost lives, then it should have been us, together. Not just you, because...you're my best friend, you're my heart, Eric. You're my partner. Partners have each other's back, no matter what. I thought that mattered to you."
He releases the breath he didn't know he was holding.
"It does matter to me, Cal. God, I...I had no idea you felt that way. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was trying to move on," she sighs. "Because I knew that you meant well. I knew that you were trying to protect me, and our friends."
"But you've been hurting, Calleigh," he says. "You talk about me hiding things...you've been hiding this from me, when it would have been good for me to know."
Calleigh sighs. "Well, it's all over now, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he says curtly.
"Don't mock me, please," she says firmly.
"I'm not mocking you," he says. "That's typical of you. Over and done with on your say so."
"What the hell do you want from me, Eric?" She asks angrily. "What? Do you want me to be weak and crying in front of you? What do you want to see, huh? You want to see me become some damn victim? To be vulnerable? What do you want from me!"
"I want you to realize that I'm right here, Calleigh!" He yells and she winces at his tone. "That I've always been there for you! I want you to stop running away from me, I want you to stop playing games! I want you to let me be your partner, your best friend for a change! You're so damn busy trying to be brave and independent that you forget about the people in your life that want to be there for you, that want to help you for a change! But you won't let them, you won't let me do that!"
She just looks at him.
"It's okay to be a little weak," he says. "It's okay to be a little needy and to let someone take care of you. It's okay to be vulnerable, especially in front of me."
She looks down at her hands.
"You can't save everyone, Cal...you can't be everything to everyone all the time, and you can't always be the protector, okay? We get it, Cal. We all get that you're strong, intelligent, independent, loyal, and protective. You don't have anything to prove to me, or to H, or to the team anymore. Stop pushing everyone away. I can tell that you've been lonely, and sad, when you don't have to be. It doesn't have to be that way for you, Cal."
Calleigh crosses her arms over her chest.
"Don't shrink me, Eric."
"I'm not trying to do that," he says calmly. "I'm just telling you that you don't have to finish construction on that twenty inch thick steel barrier you've got surrounding you."
"Well maybe I like my barrier," she argues. "Maybe I want these boundaries. Have you thought of that?"
"If it works for you, then fine."
His resolve angers and frustrates her even further.
"You've been trying to change me, Eric. Stop treating me like I'm some damn charity case or something! So I'm not as open as you are, so I'm not as trusting as you are...that doesn't make me an emotional defective! That's been the problem the whole time we were together! You've known how I am for years, so when we got together, you should have known what you were in for! Stop trying to fix me! I don't need you telling me how or what I should feel!"
Eric rubs his hand over his face.
She irritates him just as much as she makes him happy.
"You hear, but you don't listen," he says. "If, after all that I said, you think that it's because I'm trying to change you, or fix you, then you didn't get it."
"Why? Because I don't think the same way as you do?"
"You talk about me not respecting how you feel," he laments. "You're doing the same thing to me. You're minimizing what I feel for you, my concern for you, and quite frankly, after all that we've been through together, I really don't need that from you."
"Yeah? Well guess what? I don't need you at all! I don't need anything from you! I don't need you or anyone else! I didn't need you before, during, or after we were together, and I most certainly don't need you now!"
Her words to him stab him over and over, and he looks away, clenching his jaw.
Calleigh feels the tears in her eyes, and she closes her eyes before they escape her.
"Thanks for uh...clearing things up for me," Eric says bitterly. "Now, let me clear a few things up for you: I'm in love with you, Calleigh. I love you, and you know good and damn well how much I do. You've known for a while now, and I'm not going to sit here in this fucking vault all night and let you make me feel ashamed about the way I feel about you. For a person who doesn't think too highly of shrinks, you'd sure benefit from seeing one because you've hijacked every emotion from me, from our relationship and held them hostage. You've done your very best to make sure that I don't ever have a chance of getting into your heart. I admit, I had little to do with that, but before everything happened, you had your mind made up already. What I did was just the catalyst."
She cuts her eyes at him. "You don't know-"
"Let me finish," he interrupts her. "You've made it very clear how you feel, now it's my turn. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the hurt that I've caused you, for not paying attention to how you were feeling in the aftermath of it...but like I said before, I can't read your mind, Calleigh. I don't know unless you tell me, and I wish that you wouldn't wait until the bottom drops out to start telling me these things. I love you, you're my best friend and partner too...you talked about you having my back, no matter what, but when it counts the most for both of us, you won't let me have your back. You won't let me be who I've been to you for the last ten years. I can't do this push-pull, on-and-off thing with you anymore, Cal. It's too painful, and life's too short, and...I just want to be happy. I want you so, so badly, but it's clear to me, from the way you've been acting, that I can't have you."
Calleigh feels her chest tighten and her throat and mouth suddenly become dry.
"W-what are you saying to me, Eric?"
"I'm saying that...maybe us taking a break is helping us reevaluate," he says. "I...want things that you don't want, or maybe that you're not ready for, and I can't...waste any more time. We can't waste any time. Maybe when we get out of here, we should leave everything we've said and done behind and just...try to start over...see if we can be happy with other people."
She lets a tear escape and she quickly wipes it away, and nods slightly.
"Um...i-if that's what you want, then..."
"Is that what you want?" He asks.
She sniffles a bit, and smiles softly.
"Can we...think about this?" She asks. "You know...wait until we actually do get out of here?"
"Yeah," he agrees.
Calleigh draws her knees up to her chest again, and she trembles.