"How can I possibly choose sides?" she replied lightly. "I don't even know what you were being a baby about."
She almost didn't hear him when he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, "Would you like to know?"
She lifted her head in surprise, still not convinced she'd heard him right or that he wasn't joking. He certainly didn't look like he was joking.
"You don't have to tell me, Cal, if you don't want to."
He studied her face a moment longer. She wondered what he was searching for. Then he spoke again, voice still oddly subdued. "No, I think I want to," he said, his eyebrows raising slightly as though it surprised even him. "Well, maybe not 'tell', exactly. Not in so many words," he added.
Gillian shook her head, a bewildered smile on her face. "What are you talking about?"
Cal popped up abruptly from the sofa, jostling her aside ungracefully and held out his hand for hers. "Look, come with me. I need to show you something." With that, he grabbed her wrist and led her to his office. He let go of her as they walked through his doorway and strode over to his desk. In one fluid motion, he scooped up the remote then spun to aim it at the screen that hung on one wall.
As an image of a brain MRI appeared on the screen, Gillian looked at Cal and shrugged. "Your brain scans? Cal, I've seen those before. Dozens of times, in fact. You have them done a couple times a year. Why do I need…" She had stopped speaking suddenly, whipping her head back to the screen, colour draining from her face as the frayed edges of panic began to set in. "Oh, no. Oh, Cal, what…" She couldn't even finish that sentence.
Which was just as well, since Cal was already interrupting her. "No, no, no! Darlin, no! I'm good. It's all good. Didn't mean to put the fear in ya. Good to know you care, though." He was trying for levity, but it fell flat. "No, this is something else entirely."
Though her relief was plain, she gestured in a vaguely agitated manner for him to continue.
"Aye, aye," he smirked a bit at her agitation. He really did adore the look that mild agitation always put on her face. Casually motioning in the general direction of his sofa, he said, "Well, go on then. Have a seat. Make yourself comfy." He walked over, flopped down beside her and slouched low.
Gillian glanced over at him. Sometimes when he sat like that (which was most of the time, really) she wondered how it was he didn't just slide right off the edge and land on the floor. "Care to enlighten me why I'm looking at your brain?" she asked, smiling a bit now that her stomach had dislodged itself from her throat after the little scare she'd had. When he didn't answer straight away, she turned toward him. The hard-edged look in his eyes softened suddenly, and she found it unnerving. Unnerving and intense. And maybe just a little bit…hot.
Where did that come from? she wondered. Trying to hide the blush she could feel creeping into her cheeks, she turned her face quickly back toward the screen, peering intently.
Cal lifted his hand and, working the remote, brought up a photo beside the first scan. It was the one of him and Em arsing about. "That," he announced, pointing to the scan image, "is the result in my brain of looking at that." As he stated the last part, he shifted his pointing finger to the photo with Emily. "At the front of my brain there, those colours that look like a storm front moving across a Doppler, that's supposed to be love."
Crinkles formed at the edges of Gillian's eyes as she smiled, big and genuine, and spared another sidelong glance at Cal. "That's sweet. You're a good dad, Cal."
He couldn't help the glow of pride that suffused him at the sound of her words, nor the smile they brought to his lips. He kept his attention on the screen and brought up the photo of Zoe and the next scan wherein the colours were concentrated at the back of his brain.
"That is 'fight or flight', that is. No surprises there, eh?" he quipped.
Gillian just laughed, rolling her eyes. "Your ex-wife, Cal? Come on, you loved her once upon a time."
"Once upon a time, yeah. Long time ago. Another lifetime, really." Cal sucked air through his teeth a couple of times, grimaced, then pursed his lips. He turned his head toward Gillian. She returned his gaze, looking amused.
"Right," he said folding his lips into a thin line. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he plunged ahead. "Time for the Grand Finale."
On the screen, Gillian saw her own photo appear along side yet another scan. This one was lit up like a Christmas tree. Ironic, she mused, since Cal hates Christmas. She studied the scan, taking in the widespread colouration. The varied hues flashed in all parts of his brain. So then…'fight or flight'…and love? She was still trying to decide what to make of that when his voice interrupted her musings.
"That is the full spectrum, in case you were wondering: fight or flight, attraction, happiness, fear, love, pride, shame…" There was a slight pause. "And lust, of course," he added cheekily, wagging his eyebrows at her and letting his eyes slip from her face to unsubtly travel the full length of her body, tawdry smirk playing over his lips.
The crimson rushed to her cheeks again in full force, diffusing rapidly down her chest and disappearing beneath the top of her blouse. She tried to appear exasperated and aloof but it just came off as overdone and rather obviously insincere. She might as well have shouted her embarrassment and arousal though a bullhorn.
Naturally, Cal didn't fail to notice all this which, of course, only made his smirk…smirkier, if that's even possible. His eyes twinkled with amusement and then with something else. That very telling dilation of the pupils. Gillian was horrifyingly certain that her own pupils had gone so wide and so dark with desire that they might just pop right out of her head and smack him in the face.
And that was why – at possibly THE most inopportune moment – Gillian burst into a fit of giggles that caused her sides to ache and left her breathless.
"Oi! I was trying to make a point, here." Somehow, he managed to sound both amused and annoyed all at one time. "This is actually quite serious," he said imperiously.
"Sorry," Gillian said breathily, still recovering from the laughter. "Sorry, blame it on an overactive imagination."
"I'm not even gonna ask," he replied.
Gillian wiped the tears from her eyes and regained her composure. "So…what's all this about? What are you trying to tell me with this little video demonstration?"
The smile faded from his face, and he actually looked crestfallen. "Well, I really thought it'd be perfectly bloody clear what I was gettin' at." There was an edge of frustration in his voice. He gnawed away at the corner of his mouth, eyes flitting around the room like startled butterflies. The came to rest on the screen before slipping closed as he heaved a sigh.
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this," he said. "I think it's time to come clean about something; and I wanted to get my point across, right, with this," he explained, gesturing to the screen still displaying Gillian's photo alongside the scan. "But I can see now I'm gonna have to resort to…"
It seemed as though the remainder of his sentence had turned into something solid and tangible and had stuck in his throat. He began to look a bit…greenish. For a moment, Gillian actually began to wonder if he might be about to throw up. Just as she opened her mouth to ask if he needed the trash bin, he shook his head as though clearing it and found his voice again.
He looked her square in the eye then. "I'm gonna have to resort to using my words," he mumbled dejectedly.
At Cal's declaration, Gillian couldn't quite hide the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Resorting to words? This must be serious," she joked.
Cal didn't return the jest. He had gone deadly sombre and just nodded as he replied quietly, "You have no idea, luv."
Gillian tried to lighten his suddenly overcast mood. "Communicating with me in words is that much of a disappointment to you?"
"No, cos y'know, words...right?...have never been my medium. That's your arena. I operate in the physicality of truth. No real guesswork; it's all laid out, there for the readin'. But for this," he said, indicating the general space between them. "For this conversation, I need to be in your arena."
[and just like that, the first brick tumbled out of the wall. it was easier than he had expected. maybe he could do this after all.]
A/N: Still with me? Yes? No? I've got the remainder of the story pretty much written; it just wants a bit of editing and such before I post it up. Soon as I have the time to sit down a do a proper job of it, I'll get the next chapter posted. I think it'll be two more in length; just trying to suss out where to put in the break...