Need a Miracle
Six
It takes Calleigh an hour to calm down, and Eric pulls away and looks at her.
"How are you feeling?" He asks.
"I have a headache," she hiccups. "And my chest hurts..."
"From the crying," he says. "Try to keep breathing slowly.
She nods.
Eric waits for a few minutes then he caresses her cheek.
"Babe...what's going on?"
She begins to cry again, and he gently wipes her tears.
"Please Eric, just give me some time," she begs. "I-I need some time..."
"No," he says firmly. "No more time, no more space...as of this moment our little break is over. Talk to me, tell me what's happening to you, Calleigh."
Calleigh sniffles and she shakes her head.
"I can't...I don't want to argue with you or talk to you anymore," she cries. "I'm sick of it! I just want to get out of here! I need to get out of here!"
"Look, we're not getting out of here any time soon," he says calmly. "I wish I could get you out of here but I can't. I wish I could do more for you, Calleigh, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got us into this..."
She looks at him through watery eyes.
"Eric, this isn't your fault."
He sighs, running a hand over his face.
"Well, something's gotta be my fault," he says in frustration. "I did something wrong with you along the way, Calleigh."
She shakes her head, putting her hands on his arms. "No...you didn't do anything wrong with me. Y-You didn't do anything wrong. Why would you say that?"
"Because that's how you've been making me feel the whole time we've been in here!" He says angrily. "You're pulling further and further away from me, and I can't...you're my partner, and we used to be in sync, I used to be able to read you, know what you're thinking...I was thinking it and you were doing it...usually that kind of disconnect happens over long periods of time, but I've lost all of that with you in the span of a few months."
Calleigh shakes her head again with a slight smile, putting her hand on his cheek.
"Eric...it's not you. It never was you, I-"
"Then what is it?" He asks, pulling away from her, standing up. "What is it? What do I have to do to get you to tell me the truth? How many times do I have apologize for everything I've done that's hurt you? How much more do I have to do to earn back your trust?"
Calleigh sniffles and gets up. "Eric..."
"Tell me!"
"Dammit Eric!" She yells. "I never ask you for anything-"
He takes her arm and she pulls away from him, backing into the wall.
"Tell me the truth, Calleigh!"
She takes a trembling breath and tells him.
"I thought I was pregnant!" She yells.
He steps back a bit, feeling his heart twist and his stomach drop.
Of all the things he had been expecting her to say, this is something that will take his perceptions of this on a completely different course.
"What?" Is all he can ask at the moment.
"I thought I was pregnant," she repeats.
He is confused and now fearful of what she might tell him next.
How can she hide something like that from him? How long ago was it? Is she pregnant now?
If she is, that would explain her behavior of late, but she can't be. For one, he knows that she would have told him, and two, she's been actually looking thinner than he last remembers, she doesn't look like she's put on weight over the months. But then again, every pregnancy is different. No. She would have told him.
She wouldn't be so cruel as to not tell him about his child.
"Cal...I-I don't understand," he says.
"Eric...I can't talk about any of this with you right now, okay?"
"Calleigh, I'm really, really confused right now," he says, feeling like she'd just punched him in the stomach. "You...I need you to tell me what happened. Please..."
Calleigh wipes her tears and looks at him.
"Cal...please, tell me."
She crosses her arms over her chest.
She knows that she can't hide what happened forever. She can see that he's been trying to figure out if he did something wrong, if he said something...she knows that he has been trying to understand and cope with the fact that they might not make it through this, that they might not ever get back what they've lost and that there might not be anymore chances to start over. Calleigh has realized that he will not wait forever for her. He is willing to try and move on at this juncture, and that pierces her heart because she's not ready to let him go. She wants Eric. Only Eric. Now. Later. Tomorrow. Forever.
She sniffles.
"A few weeks after the incident in the lab," she begins. "I thought that I'd gotten pregnant. Well, I...felt pregnant, at least. I lost my appetite, my breasts were sore, I was so, so tired...I'd skipped a period, and I counted back to when we last made love, and remember the week before the incident, when we snuck home during our lunch break?"
He is too confused to laugh about it. "Yeah, I do."
That afternoon, they were both feeling particularly mischievous and playful, that after the lovemaking session that never came completely to it's climax, in every sense of the words, because of their respective cell phones ringing. Eric had woken her up with soft, yet nipping kisses along her neck, and then his hands entered the equation. She pretended to be half asleep for a good while, until she surprised him with a burst of energy and pinned him, taking over the teasing from there. Their phones ringing forced them to press pause.
Afternoon came, and Eric found her quickly, and he took her hand and they ducked out the back way to the garage and he took her to his place because it was closer. Soon as the door closed, he'd hoisted her up and she wrapped her arms and legs around him as he carried her to the bedroom.
"Eric...what-"
He interrupted her with a kiss.
"We can't," she began between kisses. "We shouldn't-be-here..."
"It's our lunch break," he said as he gently laid her down. "We have an hour..."
"Still..."
"Shh," he said, kissing along her neck. "Be glad we actually made it to the bed."
"We are being soo bad..." She giggled as he began to push her blouse up.
"I'm just finishing what you started this morning," he said as he got her blouse off.
Calleigh gently pushed him onto his back and straddled him.
She was beautiful, and he caressed his hands over her abdomen.
"Well, if you insist that I started it," she purred as she leaned over him and kissed him passionately. "Then I should be the one to finish..."
Eric smirked as he watched her take her bra off.
"I like the way you think, CSI Duquesne."
"Oh, you have no idea what I've been thinking about doing to you, CSI Delko," she drawled sultrily as she dangled her pair of handcuffs in front of him.
They were both happy, even after the incident. What happened to playful, bright, sunny Calleigh? He doesn't want to believe that she's changed so dramatically over a pregnancy scare.
"I figured that's around when it happened," she sighed. "So, I went and bought a pregnancy test."
"What did it say?"
"It was negative," she says quietly.
That explains why she'd had that look in her eyes when she told him that she needed a break that day. That explains the tearful look in her eyes.
He shakes his head. "Cal...w-why...? Is that the reason why everything went south between us?"
"It's that and other things..."
"Calleigh why didn't you tell me that you thought you were pregnant?" He asks. "We could have found out together. You didn't think that it was important enough to tell me?"
"Of course it was important!" She yells.
"Then why would you keep something like that from me?" He asks angrily. "How could you leave me out of something like that? How can you be so selfish?"
"I'm not going to argue with you about a pregnancy that never was!" She shouts. "I don't want to argue with you anymore! I'm sick of this shit, Eric! I'm done with you!"
"You know what? Fine. Soon as we get out of here, we won't argue about another thing, I promise you. You'll get your wish."
Calleigh shakes her head. "You call me selfish...you won't even hear me out!"
"Then talk," he says coolly.
"Forget it."
"You tell me that you thought you were pregnant months later," he begins, his voice low with fury. "You find out on your own, then you tell me that you need space without one damn reason, then you have a goddamn breakdown in front of me and scare me to death, and now you won't tell me what's going on with you. Forgive me if I'm the one that's got trust issues for a change."
"Fuck you, Eric!" She yells vehemently. "If you don't trust me now, then what's the point of me telling you a goddamn thing, huh? I'm sick of you judging me! I'm sick of you! Just like you're so sure you love me, I'm just as sure that I don't love you! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"
He's never seen Calleigh this angry before in all the years he's known her. The woman he loves passionately just told him that she hates him, and he's lost as to how to get her to forgive him for making her feel that way. She thought she was pregnant, but it turns out she wasn't, and he wonders was she relieved? Did she want to be? Does she want a family? What does she want? What does she want from him?
He swallows thickly. "C-Calliegh..." He reaches out a hand to touch her shoulder, but she pulls away.
"No."
"Babe...I'm so sorry..."
"Stop saying you're sorry!" She huffs. "Just leave me alone! I just want to get out of here and away from you!"
"I...look, there's no excuse for the way I said what I did," he says. "But I meant it. I need you to talk to me. You found out about something that we should have found out about together. I-I hate that you found out alone. Why didn't you tell me?"
She turns to him. "Because when I saw that the test was negative it was just a reminder of another thing that I can't have!"
She feels as though she'd been trapped in a pressure cooker that kept increasing the heat on her. There are things going on within her that she can't manage anymore, and it is frustrating to her, she can't handle anything anymore.
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted to be pregnant. I was actually praying that I was because...we were so happy together, and...everything was perfect. Eric..."
Calleigh pauses and wipes her tears.
"I was so sure," she continues. "I was going to surprise you with dinner or something so that I could tell you. That's how sure I was that it happened for us. But then when I saw that the test was negative, it broke my heart. The disappointment was devastating to me, it shattered everything, and I didn't tell you because the last thing I wanted was for you to be disappointed."
He sighs. "Calleigh...yes I would have been disappointed, but, we could have gotten through that together. You don't have to go through these things alone, babe."
She shakes her head. "You don't get it. I couldn't have a stable home, I couldn't have any peace because my father turned me and my sister into nervous wrecks, I couldn't have a mother that loved me enough to stick around...and I don't have anything left inside of me that says that I can do better. That I can be better. Any hope I had for carving out a normal life for myself went in the trash right along with that damn test."
He clenches his jaw. "So you just decided on your own to abandon everything we had together over one pregnancy test?"
"Eric, it was more than that," she huffs.
"What was it then?"
She sighs. "I...I got a job offer."
He furrows his eyebrows. "What?"
"A couple of weeks after I took the test, I received a phone call from Jason Klein, he's the director of the Chicago forensics lab. He said that he's been watching my work for a few years now. We talked for a long while, and he shared with me that he's been doing a complete overhaul of the lab because it was a cesspool, and he was cleaning house. They got a brand new accreditation incentive, and they're remodeling and reworking the lab. He offered me a position for assistant director."
Eric's heart begins to pound in his chest. "Th-that's...um...wow, that's a great opportunity. You haven't told anyone yet?"
She shakes her head. "I've been thinking about it. Klein has been giving me all these incentives take the position. The pay is...beyond what I thought I would ever make, and...Klein promised that I wouldn't be sitting on my ass either. He gave me until after New Year's to decide."
He feels so left out, he feels like she's taken him out of her life completely. He feels like of all the people in her life, he meant the least to her, after all they've shared. She hasn't once taken his feelings, his thoughts into consideration.
"So, are you going to take it?" He asks.
"I'm seriously considering it," she says. "Klein sent me a plane ticket to Chicago. He invited me up to see the lab, tour the city a bit...Eric...I know that you're confused and pissed at me-"
"I am," he confirms. "So, what? Were you going to let me know when you got there? And what about the team? Were you going to tell them?"
Calleigh sighs, rubbing her temples. "I haven't...thought that far ahead yet. But...the more I think about it, the more I want it."
"What about your dad? Does he even know? Are going to tell him?"
"Of course I'm going to tell him," she says indignantly.
"Are you sure you're just ready to...leave your life here?" He asks. "Calleigh, you've been living here for years...you really want to pick up and leave everything and everyone?"
"Well, I have to if I decide to take the job," she shrugs.
"You're willing to leave your dad?"
"I know that you've never been able to understand my feelings about family and all that," Calleigh sighs. "You...you're so close to your family, you don't separate your life from theirs. Your family is your life, and...I can't keep up," she chuckles a bit. "You're the best uncle in the world...I can't think of any other single men your age that would prefer babysitting duty over something else. It's...foreign to me. I've spent my childhood running away from my family, while you run toward them, and I'm not...I wasn't prepared for that when we were together. I never felt comfortable, I never felt like I really belonged. I know that your family-well, maybe your parents, I'm still convinced that your sisters have it out for me..."
He chuckles.
"I know your family has accepted me," she continues. "I love them immensely, but it's not my normal. So when I saw that the test was negative, it brought back everything I've been trying to escape. I hardly know my own mother, how can I possibly be a mother to my own child? What kind of wife will I be? And all this time we've spent in here together, we've argued and yelled and shouted, and it's exactly what my parents did when I was a little girl..."
She sits down again and she sighs.
"It wasn't you."
Eric sits across from her again. "Then what was it?"
"It was the uncertainty that I was facing," she explains as she wipes her nose as ladylike as she can manage. "We've had so many ups and downs...I need stability, Eric. My parents, I can't remember seeing them being affectionate toward each other. All I remember are the fights and the screaming, and I'm pretty sure that they didn't want to be like that. I'm absolutely sure that they didn't want our family to be like it was. And that's what scares me. People always have good intentions starting out, but...things can go bad. The only way to ensure that things don't go bad, is to not let it happen at all."
That is heartbreaking to him that she has come to that conclusion about her own future.
"Calleigh, pregnancy or no, a baby wasn't and isn't going to make the pain you feel over your family go away," he says. "Not letting yourself be happy isn't a solution either."
Calleigh sniffles. "I don't know...maybe I don't know what I want. But what I know for sure is that you're absolutely right. Life is too short, and...you should be happy. You deserve to be happy, so...if you feel like you're ready to see other people, then that's what you should do."
It causes her the deepest pain to say that, but the hours in this place have made it apparent to her that they are more volatile together than they appear. She's discovered that she's still learning how to be her own person, how to not let her father's imperfections and her family's dysfunction determine the rest of her life. She knows that she needs time to breathe, time to think and reflect, especially after this situation. Eric has simultaneously managed to make her laugh and make her furious over the last twelve hours, and she can no longer take this fluctuation in their relationship. It hurts too much, it brings back too many bad memories, it doesn't make her feel like they'd start their life together on a solid foundation. More than that, she is thinking about taking the position, which will be provide a springboard for her to try and move on and begin a different direction in her career.
"Since I was thinking about taking the position," she continues. "Us taking some time apart has made the possibility of leaving an easier thing to think about. For both of us."
Eric can't argue with her anymore, it's been too taxing emotionally, and he doesn't want to alienate her any further than what he has already. Calleigh has no idea how remorseful he is about the things that he's said to her, about the heated arguments. He's been confused, he's been angry and frustrated at her and he finally got the chance to express that to her. The tension has left his body, but now he feels regret because the things they've said to each other should never have been said. The words they've shouted came from the heart. It was things they were feeling, are feeling.
"You see," she says. "When I got the job offer...I figured that it was a sign, you know? I suppose it was a good thing that I wasn't pregnant. I know I've been here for years, but...too much has happened here, good and bad, and what I have-had with you has changed my life. I can hold on to that, to you, in that way...but I think that it's about time that I try to move on. Like you said, when we get out of here, we should...just try to move on."
She is obviously ready to make a clean break with him whenever they are rescued from this vault, which Eric thinks will happen soon. The fact that he is irrevocably, deeply, endlessly in love with her is irrelevant now, even though he's said it to her many times, showed it in subtle ways. He won't say that she doesn't care that he loves her, but it's obviously not enough for her. Whatever wounds she carries in her heart cannot be healed by him alone. There are spaces and voids in her that he simply can't fill, there are questions she has to which he has no answers. He can't quite gage the depth of her sadness and pain that her past has caused her, and he can only imagine now the look on her face as she looked at that pregnancy test. He feels guilty for not paying closer attention to her to realize that she was off, that she wasn't feeling well.
Eric can see her now, standing in the bathroom, staring dejectedly at that negative sign, feeling what little hope for making things right within herself being snatched from her. He can see her dropping that little test that sealed their fate into the wastebasket and turning her back on it, and shaking with frustration and fatalism.
They weren't even trying to have a baby. The fact that one possibility, one test changed the entire course of their relationship angers him. Not only did she deprive him of sharing that moment with her, she's depriving him of her, depriving him of her by leaving.
But he will not say anything because it won't do any good.
Calleigh has her mind made up. Part of him is happy that she's considering moving up in her career. She is so devoted to the lab here that she's put her ambitions on hold. Calleigh has done some excellent and groundbreaking work in her field, and Eric has always wondered how she never considered the many job offers that have come her way over the years. She was even offered professorships at Miami-Dade, NYU, and Baylor, the latter being two of the most prestigious universities in the country. She never blinked as she turned each one of them down because she was dedicated to the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. But she deserves this, she's been groomed for this position, and, despite his anger, and despite his love for her, he thinks that she should take it.
Eric rests his head against the wall, thinking about how beautiful she'd be if it turned out that she was really pregnant. That gives him hope, that she'd wanted to be pregnant with his baby. He thinks about how happy she would have been, how she probably would have surprised him in some way, and how she would ask him if her body had changed any. Calleigh probably would start coming to terms with her family, reconnecting with her mother. He imagines that she would be reading every pregnancy magazine, book, and pamphlet she could find.
It's an entertaining thought, and he could picture no other woman in that position.
Calleigh pushes her hair behind her ears. She sees that Eric has drifted off into his thoughts, and she knows that he's probably thinking about what has transpired between them in here, or probably wondering about the moment she took the pregnancy test.
If he actually saw the utter heartbreak in her face, it would really put him in a bad place. She knows that Eric never can stand to see her deeply hurt over something, no matter what it is. He's so protective and considerate of her feelings...at least most of the time. The shots he's taken at her have hit her hard, but she knows that he's been angry at her. She knows it, even though he has been so gracious to her these past months. Probably more than she deserves. She deprived him of an intimate moment that she can never recreate, or take back. He is right; she should have let him be there. She wished so much that he'd been there, but ultimately decided that it was for the best that he didn't know.
She knows he sees it as her making all the decisions for them in their relationship, but she knows him well, intimately, down to his soul, and she knows how hard he takes some things, especially since they've been together. But for him, it would be a sad moment, but he would also have hope, he would be encouraged, it would make him want marriage, a family, a home even more, and it would propel them into a life for which she isn't quite ready. And it would have been an even harder conversation if she'd told him about the job offer. She knows that would have surely caused a separation because too many other things are more important to Eric aside from his career.
For right now, Calleigh is doing the best she can do. But above all else, Eric's happiness is what matters to her. He's secure in who he is, he can easily embrace a family life, he's ready for it and she doesn't want to be the one that makes him wait. It's not fair to expect him to wait for her to catch up with him. He needs and deserves stability too.
"My parents almost divorced," he says, breaking through the silence, and she looks at him.
"Your parents?" She asks incredulously, skeptically. "Pavel and Clorinda Delko, on the verge of divorce?"
"Yeah," he says.
"Are you telling me about the talk you had with your parents?"
"Why not?" He shrugs. "I mean...a lot of other things have come out, so..."
"You know you don't have to for my sake," she reminds him. "If it's private, I respect that."
"No, I want to share this with you," he explains.
"Okay."
"After everything came out about Sharova, I was angry at my whole family," he reveals. "I didn't talk to them for a good month because I needed to make sense of it. When I finally did sit down with my parents, all I felt was hurt. All of them had been lying to me my whole life, and suddenly, I felt as if I had no identity within my own family. My mom was in tears and I let her know that I wasn't angry at her anymore, I just wanted the whole story. So she told it to me. She had an affair before we left Cuba. My dad had had already been in the States for six months. He was trying to get everything set for us when my mom got there. She was working in the factory, and she said that at that time, things weren't even going that well between her and my dad. Even before he left Cuba, things were tense."
"She said that was their lowest point. When she met Sharova, she said that he was nice to her, he bought her lunch and coffee, then they began spending time together at work. It went on for a while, then Sharova just up and disappeared on her before she could tell him that she got pregnant with me. I was the reason we stayed longer in Cuba. My mom worked up the courage to confess to my dad what had happened, and...he said that he could barely look at her..."
"I felt strongly to leave," Pavel explained to his son. "I was angry, and I was heartbroken..."
Eric looked between his parents, and he watched as his father wrapped his arm around his mother's shoulders.
"I of course still love your Mami," he said, his voice rough with emotion, his eyes reddening with unshed tears. "I love your sisters...all I could think was 'Not my child...he not my son.' The shame of it, I could not bear, your mother could not bear, your sisters could not bear. We were going to America like this?"
Eric sighed and tried to keep his emotions in check.
"Why did you...how could you...accept me?"
"Because I realize then that no matter what, you are Delektorsky," Pavel said enthusiastically. "I think, your sisters are Delektorsky. Your Mami is Delektorsky, and I put my hand on Mami's belly, I feel you kick and I think, 'He is Delektorsky. He is my family. He part of us.'"
Clorinda reached out and touched her son's hand.
"I am sorry that we did not tell you sooner," she said sincerely. "But, we didn't want you to feel any different growing up. You are our son, mijo. We made sure to let you know that everyday. We told your sisters that you are their brother, no matter what. Hijo, the mistake was the affair, the miracle was you."
"You see my son, you bring us closer," Pavel explained. "Your mother give birth to you, and we come to America and it is fresh start. I scoop up water and I dripped it over the head of each child, and I say, 'Teresa, you are American. Nina, you are American. Marisol, you are American. Eric, you are American, you are my son.'"
Eric nodded and he sat in the living room for a long while as his parents piddled around in the kitchen. After he let their words sink in, he got up and he hugged both of his parents.
Calleigh smiles. "You're very fortunate. You're very...loved."
Eric chuckles. "Yeah...at times I would think too much, but...it was good to know that my dad wouldn't have it any other way."
She bites her bottom lip. "What...what made your dad stay with your mom? I mean, he was about to leave her for good. What made him stick with her? Was it because of you and your sisters ultimately?"
He shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Believe me, he had his mind set on leaving. He worked out the logistics and everything."
"Then what made him stay? I mean, how could he even...trust your mom again? Didn't it ever bother him to look at her or you sometimes and remember the reality of it all?"
"I'm pretty sure he did," he chuckled.
"Why put yourself through that kind of torture?" She asks incredulously. "Why did he stay?"
"Love..."
She rolls her eyes. "I figured you'd say that..."
"And forgiveness."
Calleigh looks away.
"I know you're wondering how we can just...move on," he says. "But Calleigh, none of us wanted to sacrifice a lifetime of closeness and being a family over one mistake that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really matter. Indulging the anger and bitterness I felt would have risked a lifetime feeling love, security, and feeling like a son. It wasn't worth it. It's not worth it. At some point you just have to meet people where they're at, you-you've got to let some things go so you can let other things in. It's...it's about deciding your own worth against the situation. I decided that I loved my parents, my family too much to let the fact that some guy, some coward named Alexander Sharova is my biological father. I decided that I wasn't going to ever give him the satisfaction. Sharova's not a bad person, I don't think he ever really was...he was just a guy that my mom met in a factory one day."
She feels the tickle of a tear running down her cheek, and she quickly wipes it away.
I love this man, she thinks to herself. I love him. I'm a coward. I am such a pathetic coward. Eric is in a good place in his life. Regardless of me...but he wants me. I know how much he does. He's such an amazing, good man...
"I know that to you it sounds like I'm oversimplifying, but...it's not that complicated, either, babe."
He thinks that she doesn't want to belong to him. It doesn't matter jack shit whether she wants to or not, she does belong to him.
She inhales, then releases.
"What time is it?"
He feels a pang of disappointment.
That's all she has to say? Asking the time?
He looks at his watch.
"Seven AM."