A/N: Just a quick disclaimer - Sections of this chapter are pretty strong T. Enjoy!

"I think maybe that is what we're waiting for," she finishes. "Because if both of us truly can see everything, and we still haven't done something about it? Then… maybe it just isn't quite the right time for us, yet."

Lord knows Gillian Foster has any number of reasons to tell him to go straight to hell – not the least of which is his tendency to use a 'hurt them first' philosophy on everyone in his life, save Emily. And only Emily, yeah? Gillian is no stranger to standing in the crosshairs of his self-destruction or his anger. Fight or Flight has long been his modus operandi, in much the same way as 'Truth or happiness – never both,' is his motto. He's… intense, you know? A very trying man to love.

But she does.

He can see it.

He isn't afraid to see it, now.

And maybe she's right.

Maybe they're both just waiting for a sign.

His conscious mind doesn't really hear the siren at first. The loud, cyclic screeching is a bit too far away to be intrusive, and he's so caught up in his dream that the noise doesn't wake him fully. Not yet. Instead, his mind tries to merge the two, you know? To blend reality with fantasy. One accepts the other and then starts to change the parameters, so that everything makes sense.

He sees them on a beach. In the sunshine. With water lapping at their ankles and sand clinging to their backs, and they're smiling. Both of them. They're laughing at each other's jokes, and her skin is flushed in all the right places, and he swoops her up into his arms, spins her around in playful abandon, before gently placing her beneath the shade of an umbrella, atop a soft, plush towel.

His senses insist that it's reality – that he isn't actually dreaming at all. And he can feel the heat of her skin beneath his palms, as he covers her body with his own and delights in the way she grips at him eagerly. Her hands curl around his shoulders, and his lips meet hers on a groan. His mouth opens to her, and as they kiss – hot, wet, passionate, and desperate – his right hand slowly skates down… down… down, past the swell of her breast and the curve of her waist, to the tiny little bow that rides low on her hip. The ties that bind her bottoms tease his fingertips, and with just a single, tiny tug… the knot comes undone. Voila. She's free.

His hand is itching to touch her; it's desperate to explore the territory he's just uncovered, and he can see that she's desperate, too. Her breath hitches, as her nails rake over his shoulders and down his back, and she says his name on a groan. "…Cal…"

The sound of that single syllable is practically his undoing – it nearly snaps his self-control. And when he grits his teeth in frustration… when his fingers roughly pull at the knot on her other hip, as he hurries to yank the skimpy, pink material out of the way… there it is again. The siren. It's ringing louder now. It's loud enough to almost drown out the sound of Gillian's voice completely.

Bloody inconsiderate, that.

He wants to make the noise stop – to figure out why it's even there with them, in paradise. But she's groaning in his ear, and her warmth is so inviting, and his body is practically screaming in protest at the thought of switching gears now. Now, of all times. When he's mere moments away from thrusting inside her.

"…Cal…"

She sounds insistent. Calls for him in a sharp, low tone that lands somewhere at the base of his skull and reverberates up, until it rattles through his brain. And then he notices that he can't feel the sand quite as easily… that the sunshine has dimmed, and the waves seem farther away, and that something feels… off. He's being pulled back to the surface – shaken from an idyllic dream (and yes, this is the moment in which he becomes aware that he's actually been dreaming) to face a reality that isn't nearly as erotic.

Call him stubborn, or stupid, or even just plain horny (all three are accurate), but even though he is no longer sleeping… he isn't completely awake yet, either. He's dozing, yeah? Refusing to open his eyes at all, or to actively think about much of anything, just in case he might be able to will his mind to finish what it started – to press "play" on his dream again, and see just how far his imagination would let things go.

"…Cal…"

He feels a hand begin to shake his shoulder, as that horrible, grating, monstrosity of a siren seems to morph from being a background nuisance, to a foreground terror. It's loud enough to make him want to rip his ears off, now. And by the time he realizes that there's absolutely zero hope of reclaiming his dream, he also realizes that Gillian is right there. In his current reality. That he truly had felt her touch on his shoulders, and heard her calling his name. One… two… three times, in total.

Yet the sunshine is gone.

Paradise is gone.

Goddamn his terrible luck.

His eyes pop open in annoyance, and then he winces at the mind-numbingly awful noise that seems to be emanating from somewhere nearby. The siren. It sounds like a car alarm – or a dozen of them, actually – and he decides that if it doesn't stop soon, he will go completely insane. Certifiable, really. Men with straightjackets will need to toss him in a padded cell.

And trust him, that sound is the only thing he notices at first. The rest of it doesn't hit him until a few seconds later, and when it does… his reaction is comical. He blinks with the speed of a hummingbird's wing, trying to get his eyes adjusted to the light (artificial, not sun). And once he can actually see, Gillian's face is the sight that greets him first. Then he notices her shoulders, arms, hands, body… yeah. The words 'right there' were a bit of an understatement. Because she's even closer than that. They are as close together as it's possible to be, without him actually being inside of her.

So he smiles. Despite the awful noise, and the ache in his back, and the fact that he doesn't understand where in bloody hell they actually are, yet… he smiles. He likes being so close to her.

Gillian, however, does not smile.

She is sandwiched between his chest and the back of the sofa, and aside from looking beautiful – which she always does – she's covering her right ear with her right hand as she grimaces in discomfort. Her left hand makes one more 'shake' against his shoulder before she nudges and wiggles (…kneeing him in the groin as she goes…), and then that hand clamps over her left ear, too. Perhaps the men with straightjackets will throw them in the same cell.

"Cal, get up!"

He catches the full brunt of her next wiggle in one testicle, and when he recoils in pain – when his knees draw up and his rear end juts out, as his body reacts with instinct, rather than finesse - he falls straight to the floor, and catches the heel of a shoe in the other testicle. Insult to injury. Now he knows exactly how that feels.

So, he grumbles and groans – he lets out a few stray "fucks" and mutters something about his scrotum that he hopes she doesn't hear – and then squints up at her with an embarrassed frown. "How about down, Gill?" he tries, aiming for humor, just to try and cover his wounded pride. "I got down, not up. And if you'd like to take another shot at my tackle, suppose you could do me a favor and introduce it to something a little bit friendlier on the next go? Knees, love. They're quite lovely, but not exactly soft."

Mind you, because that bloody psychotic alarm is still blaring in the background, he can't exactly speak those things to her at a normal volume. He has to shout them, instead. Full bore, and (aside from the comment about his scrotum) without any embarrassment at all. It's an odd situation, to say the least. He's sleepy, pained, confused, half deafened, and all but screaming an update on the status of his… happy place… as Gillian looks on in apologetic shock, with her hands still clamped over her ears as she scrambles to sit upright.

"We need to find the keys," she shouts right back at him – shock fading into a blend of exasperation and annoyance as she drops to the floor beside him, takes one hand away from her ear, and reaches for his pocket. His front pocket. The one that is very, very close to where his manhood is currently hidden, stubbornly half hard, despite attacks from both the knee and the shoe.

(Hey – don't judge him. It was a very bloody good dream, and the loss of it makes him ache in a way that isn't the result of a collision with his testicles.)

So, when Gillian's fingers pat down against that pocket – very narrowly avoiding the eye of the storm (so to speak) as she does – and then move upward to begin tucking themselves inside, his jaw drops open and a singular thought hits him like a lightning bolt: now. He wants her right bloody now, right bloody here, and he doesn't much care if an entire symphony of sirens, air horns, stampeding elephants, or freight trains tears through the parking lot in a crescendo of epic proportions, so long as it doesn't separate his body from hers.

"The keys," she tries again – still shouting. "Where are they?"

And he's about to tell her.

Honestly, he is.

But a beat later – when she suddenly goes wrist-deep inside the wrong pocket – his eyes widen in both shock and overwhelming arousal. Quite determined, she is. And quite dexterous. It takes no time at all for his breath to seize, as both of his hands begin to spasm against the floor and he finds himself torn between the urge to throw himself right on top of her, or just wait it out and let her finish her search.

"Next time, I'll be sure to wear my easy-access jeans," he mutters, just because he's… well… him. The words are instinct. They're a mix of embarrassment, pride, and desire that's so bloody strong, his head (the one that sits atop his shoulders, not beneath thick, confining denim) feels like it just might burst.

Gillian, though, doesn't react to his quip. She doesn't meet his eyes, and she certainly doesn't laugh. Maybe she didn't even hear him at all. Because while he might currently be riding the mental fast track toward consummation, she… is not. There's a delay between them that he can't quite understand. A metaphoric canyon that divides his reality (or lack thereof) from hers.

Before he can say another word, though, she yanks at his pocket (still the wrong one) with renewed force and sends him toppling sideways. She's surprisingly strong for her size, and he doesn't even try to resist. He'd be a bloody fool for that, yeah? So he just kind of slumps there on the floor, as she gets on all fours and hovers over his body. It's not a bad position to be in. It has certain… perks, if you will. She's damned cute when she's flustered.

"That's your car alarm," she shouts, "and we need to find your keys to shut it off. Now. So either you help me find them, or I swear to God, Cal, I'm going to rip your pants off and find them myself!"

Silence.

Oh, bloody hell, the silence.

It's blissful and sudden, and arrives sometime after Gillian says "help me" but before she says "swear to God." Which, therefore, means that when she shouted the words "I'm going to rip your pants off," she did so without any other background noise to buffer her enthusiasm.

Talk about a moment he'll always remember, yeah?

Now. Keep in mind that while all of this is unfolding – while he's trying to decide on an appropriate reaction to what he's just heard – he's also becoming hyperaware of exactly where they are, and what they're doing, and how they wound up in a tangle on the floor sometime in the middle of the night.

The 'where' is simple: they're in his office. And the 'what' is also simple: they've been sleeping, face to face on the sofa, before being rudely interrupted by the loudest car alarm in the history of the world. Which was, apparently, his.

But the 'how,' though? That part is a bit… trickier. It's fuzzy. When he tries to remember the details, he finds them muted by both slumber and alcohol. And while he isn't drunk – he isn't even close to it, actually – he's so completely thrown by the emotions he sees on her face, that he's tempted to push the boundaries of propriety farther than they've ever been pushed before.

He clears his throat. Tilts his head and leans forward, as every fiber of his being merges together into one insistent urge, and his tongue darts out to wet lips that ache to touch hers. "Gillian, I…" he tries, and then stops. His voice comes out rougher than expected. It sounds thick and rich and raw – like bittersweet pain – and it's then, right then, when he sees it again. That metaphoric canyon. They aren't on the same page, yet.

And so he backpedals. "Tight pockets," he covers. Weakly. "Must've shifted the wrong way in my sleep and turned the bloody alarm on, then shifted again to turn it off. So… apologies for the ruptured eardrum, and all that."

It's not even close to what he wants to tell her, but it seems to work in a pinch and it breaks the tension that her "rip your pants off" caused. It feels a bit like one step forward and two steps back, but hey – she's smiling. He'll take it.

On second thought, no – no she isn't 'just' smiling. She's laughing, too. Because yes, the situation is pretty funny. They have the oddest luck sometimes.

Just for the record? He's always loved the sound of her laugh. It's light and delicate – almost bubbly, like a simmering broth. The smile that accompanies it begins in her eyes but slowly spreads across the rest of her features, until it finally settles in her mouth. And oh, how he loves that mouth. How he wants to claim it – to possess it with his own – until they both succumb to passion.

With that possibility currently off the table, though, he'll gladly settle for conversation instead.

He grins and murmurs at her – something inane about oversized key fobs and the benefits of elastic waists. Then he gestures down at himself absentmindedly, and sees that her fingers are still right there. Two of them are literally tucked into the top edge of his tight pocket, and the others linger against the denim as though they're weighed down by indecision. To stay or to leave, yeah? That truly is the question.

"At least we know it works," he says lamely. "And I, for one, pity the would-be thief who ever dares to second guess the potency of a Prius' alarm."

It's a pathetic attempt at conversation if ever he's ever heard one, but he doesn't much care. Partly because those particular words don't wind up putting either one of them beneath a spotlight… and partly because he packed enough eyebrow wiggling around the word 'potency' to serve them well for the next five years. And he bloody loves it when her light, bubbly laugh soon builds into something… more. Something happier. Something that's completely lacking in fear and full of something else.

It's hope.

Perhaps there's a bridge between that canyon after all.

He walks over to his desk and drops his keys onto its surface with a metallic thud. And he's just about to say something else – to ask her if she wants another drink, maybe – when he turns on his heel expecting to see her seated on the sofa, but finds her standing right in front of him instead. No shoes, yeah? He's at a bit of a disadvantage without the click of her heels to warn him of an approach.

Not that he really needs a warning.

Or wants one.

(He doesn't.)

And quite frankly, the sight of her perfectly-polished, perfectly pink toes digging into the carpeting is a sight he isn't prepared to handle. It looks… good. Very good. He feels a fresh wave of heat begin to flare somewhere between his navel and his knees, as he suddenly has to fight to breathe correctly. In through his nose and out through his mouth. It's almost more than he can handle.

For lack of anything else coherent to say (or rather, anything coherent that doesn't involve sexual innuendo or an ill-timed proposition), he starts to apologize. For the car alarm. Again. His ears are still ringing and he suspects that hers are, too, and… well… he wants to delay the inevitable. He isn't ready to take her home just yet.

But see, the key word there is "starts." He "starts" to apologize, but she barely lets him say two words before she takes him by the hand and leads him back to the sofa. Color him totally surprised.

They sit. She takes the center cushion, and he takes the end. Or rather… he takes the end, and she takes the other half of the same end. On the same cushion. So that their limbs are pressed together, and the heat from her body quickly merges with his. And his eyes automatically close, as he realizes that he feels just as warm now, fully awake and sitting beside her, as he did in that dream. When his body was on top of hers, and everything he felt, tasted, saw, and knew began and ended with a single truth.

Love.

So if she's trying to kill him, he decides that it's one hell of a brilliant way to go.

"Thank you, Cal," she says, totally out of the blue. And then she blushes. "Don't think I've ever told you this before, but I always sleep better when you're right next to me."

And if ever there was a moment – a single, weighted, prophetic moment, when the desires in his brain merged with those in his heart – that was it. That was the moment. The one that makes his breath seize and turns his hands clammy, while every inch of his entire body snaps to attention (…yes, his manhood, too…), ready for the green light that he desperately hopes she will give.

Because what she just said?

Short of an "I love you," he can't think of anything that will top it.

Eloquence has never been his strong suit, though, and the best he can do – the most appropriate verbal reply he can manage – goes something like this: "Same here, love. I always sleep better when you're right next to me, too."

Just for the record, yes: he is aware that it sounds completely pitiful. He does intend to follow it up with a kiss, though. A real one. Breath-stealing even, if all goes according to plan. He gets as far as angling his body toward hers, as his hand begins to trace the contours of her cheekbone and jaw… but then the look on her face stops him cold. Because whereas he's finally at the point where he feels the moment – with his entire heart and his entire soul – she appears to be thinking it. To be analyzing it.

And as badly as he wants her…

As badly as he wants to be allowed to love her…

He knows it won't work unless they're both on the same page.

So, he takes a deep breath and tries to will his body to calm down. And he watches Gillian watch what he's doing – she sees it, yeah? His disappointment. His yearning. She sees him turn it off and pack it away, and there's a rebuttal on the tip of her tongue – an explanation of some type, though she certainly doesn't owe him one – but he doesn't let her give it. That's a road they don't need to travel.

Instead, he gently maneuvers them both until they're lying down face to face again, with his chest acting as her pillow. And he presses one… two… three kisses against the top of her head, as his hands stroke her back in long, gentle sweeps. "Nothing says we have to leave here until we're both good and ready," he manages. "So if it's alright with you, darling, I'd like to hold you for a little while longer."

He both feels and hears Gillian's smile – it's in her touch and in her voice, as she answers almost immediately. "I'd like that, too," she says.

But all too soon, the silence is shattered once again.

His car's security alarm isn't to blame this time though. This time, it's an ambulance. Or rather… it's what he imagines to be an entire fleet of ambulances. They're loud enough to wake the bloody dead – and not only do the sirens slice through the stillness of his office, but the flashing lights do, too. They are bright as hell, and he's temporarily blinded by their intensity.

So, he flinches and curses, as Gillian buries her face in his chest and lets out a single-syllabled swear. The cacophony seems to last for ages, but when it passes – when silence reigns around them once again, and their eyes readjust to the darkness, he's the first to proudly declare that…

"Well, at least my tackle didn't take a beating this time."

It feels good, you know? Levity. Silliness. A bit of light-hearted fun to offset the seriousness they both know is still there, waiting for them on the sidelines. Gillian seems to appreciate it just as much as he does, because she wastes no time in pointing out that…

"And at least my shoe stayed out of your ass."

Heh. She normally doesn't say that word. And she definitely doesn't say it in reference to his anatomy.

He rather likes it, to be honest.

When she snuggles back down into him again, he presses another kiss against her head and uses the opportunity to inhale the scent of her hair. Then he brushes his fingertips along the column of her throat, just so he can feel the way her pulse flutters in response to his touch. It's absolutely intoxicating – the tangible, undeniable, real way that her body reacts to his. Why hasn't he noticed it before? He wants to put his lips there, too, and learn how that delicate skin tastes and feels beneath the warmth and wetness of his tongue.

He gets no farther than that, though – just a fleeting fantasy – before the next noise interrupts them. It's a telephone, this time. The one from the reception desk, judging by the distance. And it does not stop. It rings nine… ten… eleven times at top volume before finally, the caller (no doubt a wrong number) either gets tired of waiting, or realizes their mistake and hangs up.

Rather than being annoyed, though, Gillian's shoulders are shaking with laughter as soon as the ringing stops. Her body burrows even tighter against his, as she tips her head back and blinks up at him with a lovely little smile on her face. And he smiles down at her in return – too captivated by the look in her eyes and by the absurdity of the situation to actually speak. There's no need, though. Her words come pretty bloody close to the ones he would've chosen anyway.

"At this rate," she says, "I wouldn't be too surprised to see an entire marching band or a wild pack of roaring tigers come bursting through the door. I mean… good lord, Cal, I'm starting to think the universe is trying to tell us something."

As soon as that sentence gets out of her mouth – literally, the very second she finishes saying the word "something" – he hears it off in the distance. The helicopter. There's a rhythmic whir-whir-whir that he just knows will only get louder. Which is par for the course, apparently. It's open season on "Cal and Gillian's Quiet Evening," so why not add a chopper to the mix?

He sees recognition dawn on her face in reaction to the helicopter's sound, and so he clutches her even tighter… drops his leg over hers, so as to practically fold her inside his body… and presses his mouth against the shell of his ear. "I'm inclined to agree with you on that one," he grumbles. And then he waits a few more seconds before following that particular bit of genius conversation (note the intentional sarcasm) with a something that is equal parts romance and dry wit. He says…

"But if the universe expects me to concentrate on anything other than how fantastic you feel in my arms, then it'll need to do quite a lot better than that."

Happiness.

He sees that emotion bloom on her face first. It's followed by a tiny bit of embarrassment, just a hint of nervousness, and there – last but not least – arousal. And his fingertips skim across her pulse point as her eyes lock with his. Her heart is bloody racing. It's beating so goddamn fast that he should probably be worried, but then again… so is his. They're an even match, that way.

And as for fear? Thankfully, no. It's nowhere to be found.

For all the time they've spent waiting and wondering and testing each other – all the days, weeks, months, years spent dancing around some godforsaken line – he now knows exactly what he wants. Or rather… he now knows that it has been somewhat pointless to wait for the perfect time to actually claim what he wants, because that – the stereotypical "perfect time" – does not exist. It's a myth. A bloody fable, perpetuated by romantics and chicken-shits alike, who are all too caught up in someone else's idea of happiness to be courageous enough to claim it for themselves.

Happiness, yeah?

It's a choice.

Easy, difficult, or in between – it's a goddamn choice.

And he sees that, now.

It's been his choice to wait. To be stupid. To let fear and self-doubt and arrogance nearly push their friendship to the breaking point. And it's been his choice to stay silent. To watch her marriage crumble, and her heart break in the wake of Dave's departure… to tell his daughter that he'd fallen in love with Gillian, but then not tell Gillian herself.

He's gotten so caught up in fantasy – so distracted by the risks, and the 'what-ifs' and the gamble of it all – that he's been blind to the fact that reality is better. It's not a competition at all. He's been a bloody coward this whole time.

And yes, he sees that, too.

"You and I, we have this level of trust between us that most people don't get to experience. This advantage that the science affords. Meaning that we can see things – real, tangible, difficult things – that other people can't. We aren't blind to any of it, Cal. Not the fear, not the doubt, and certainly not the depth of emotion. I can see it, and so can you. And I just think… I think maybe that is what we're waiting for. Because if both of us truly can see everything, and we still haven't done something about it? Then… maybe it just isn't quite the right time for us, yet."

Christ.

Hindsight, yeah? It sneaks up on him out of nowhere, and smacks him sharply on the back of the head. And when he remembers those words now – when he replays them, and takes enough time to pause and rewind all the nuances of both language and expression – he sees, clear as a bell, the double edged sword behind them. He understands that the longer one waits… the easier it becomes to continue waiting. Self-doubt and fear? Those are the demons that take root in the space between where her heart ends and where his begins. And unless one of them is brave enough to slice a path right through the chaos, then they'll forever be stuck in limbo.

We.

Us.

Both.

She uses those words over and over again, by choice. Nothing is singular. There is no blame, and there is no anger. She feels exactly the same way he feels – and the only trouble is, she's too entangled in all the self-doubt and fear to see a pathway to where he stands.

He's there, though.

Metaphorically speaking, he's standing right there.

And come hell or high water, he isn't leaving without her.

A/N: Originally, this story was only intended to have four chapters. But while I was writing this one, Cal kind of got away from me (he's tricky that way) and refused to have his musings put on a time table. Chapter five should be the last one, though, and it will pick up right where this one ended.

Thanks for reading!