A/N: Thanks to my beta Jen G. Especially considering I sent this to her at 11PM EST. Thank her for me getting this out tonight instead of tomorrow. And please, no throwing of objects. I will update soon, people. As always, enjoy and please review. thanks!

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Chapter 6

Calleigh hesitantly got up at the knock at the door. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she cautiously walked over. Who the hell was at her door at 3AM? A peek through the peephole had her backing up a step, heart beginning to race. What was he doing here? He couldn't be here. She couldn't take this on top of everything else. She didn't want to open the door. She really didn't want to confront Eric about what had happened in the club, but whether or not she did it now or did it tomorrow, the conversation would happen. That much she was sure of. He probably had questions. Top of that list was where they went from here.

And then there was their past to contend with. Could she do it? Could she come out and tell him everything that had happened before the shooting? Did she want to? Six months after that terrible day when he'd woken up and not remembered anything. Things had changed and she was selfishly worried he'd hate her for not saying anything in the first place. He deserves the truth, whatever his reaction is, a voice inside whispered. Calleigh closed her eyes and jumped slightly at the insistent knock that sounded again. She could do this.

Reaching for the door, she said a little prayer for strength and finally opened it, meeting the dark eyes of her partner. "I know it's late, but this can't wait," Eric said, starting the conversation. "Can I come in?"

Calleigh pulled the door open more and stepped aside so he could walk in. Eric strode jerkily into the room, his movements sharp and quick. A worried frown creased her brow at his obvious agitation. "Look, Eric about tonight—"

"That's not why I'm here. Well, it is and isn't. After you left, I went home. I found something in my room that made me have these…visions or something. Dreams. I'm not real sure. But the point is, you were in them. Calleigh, what the hell is going on?" Eric turned to look at her, confusion written on his face. "Everything was fine after the shooting and now I'm having these dreams? Or something. I've gotten past the shooting, recovered, and now…"

"Dreams?" she whispered. "What kind of dreams?"

Eric flushed slightly and averted his eyes. "We're…together. It's…different. And then tonight, I'm at home and I have these…flashbacks? Or daydreams? I'm not real sure. But you're in them again and it, they feel so real. It's like they're real and I'm not, or maybe it's the visions that are fantasy and this is real? One of them had me giving you the espresso machine and I know that's real. I bought that for you just a year ago, but then there were two more. We were wrestling in grass somewhere, maybe a park? And we were laughing and it was real. It felt real. They felt like…memory," he said, confusion and panic in his voice, his eyes.

"And the dreams, I had the first one a couple of months ago. Every time I have another dream or find myself in the middle of a daydream or vision or whatever you call them, I always find myself feeling hollow inside after. Like something's missing. And it aches inside. It feels incomplete. I feel incomplete. Calleigh, I feel like I'm losing my mind. You know. You know what I'm talking about. You have to tell me the truth," he added, desperate pleading manifested in his eyes.

Calleigh felt irrational tears prick at her eyes. It would come out now. She couldn't hide the truth any longer, not from him and not from herself. Eric had a right to know what had happened before his shooting and it wasn't fair of her to keep it from him. It wasn't fair for her to have kept it from him for the last six months and she was terrified of his reaction once he learned. "I—" Her throat seized up on the words and Calleigh had to swallow twice before she could even attempt to get the truth out. "I h-have to t-tell you something, Eric and you're not going to like it. In fact, I'm pretty sure you're going to be angry and you'll have every right to that anger, but I hope you'll understand why I did what I did," she began, voice barely above a whisper. She was lucky to get even that much out.

Calleigh moved to sit on the sofa and Eric followed suit. She didn't think her legs would hold her up if she attempted to conduct this conversation standing. There was so much to say, to explain, but where to start? Eric must have seen the question in her eyes, because he answered quietly, "Start at the beginning."

She took a deep breath and began her tale.

"It started out small, little things. We went to the range together about six months before the shooting to practice. You said you wanted to be more proficient in long-range rifle work. I helped you, adjusting your technique, focusing your attention on the target and we went to the range just about every weekend. At first, it was just us, you and me, Calleigh and Eric, enjoying a Saturday morning at the range. But one of those Saturdays you asked me out to get coffee after shooting. We went to Terisita's and you introduced me to Mr. Suarez, who insisted I call him Antonio," Calleigh smiled briefly in fond remembrance.

"That afternoon we spent three hours just talking, not about work, about ourselves, what was going on, something we hadn't done for a couple of years. Ever since Tim died, we'd grown apart." At this, Eric nodded his head unconsciously, agreeing soberly with his partner. "It was nice. To be able to talk to you like I used to. I missed my best friend."

"I missed you too, Cal. But I don't remember that," Eric told her quietly.

Tears stung at her eyes. "There's a lot you don't remember, Eric." A deep breath was inhaled before Calleigh could continue her story. "The next Friday after work, a long shift, I invited you to join me for a late dinner. We went to Shooter's and what started as a dinner between friends turned into a date by the end of the night. You kissed me, so sweetly…" Calleigh closed her eyes and the tears that had clung precariously spilled over to her cheeks. For a few moments she relived that initial hesitant brush of lips, trembling inside, nervous butterflies in her stomach, head saying one thing and heart screaming another.

Calleigh's words struck something inside Eric and a brief flash of two cars, one behind the other, Eric following the first, familiar houses lining the street. "I followed you home, made sure you got back safe," he murmured.

Calleigh looked up at his words and nodded. "You remember?"

"I remember following you, not what happened before or after. A brief glimpse. My mind only shows me bits and pieces of the picture, not the whole," he explained.

"We spent the next two weeks going out after work. We took things slow. I wasn't keen on dating a co-worker, but you were…persuasive," Calleigh flushed, remembering just how persuasive the man sitting next to her was. He was relentless when he wanted something. And a year ago, he'd wanted Calleigh. "We made love for the first time about a month after our first date. It was…perfect," she whispered. "You were perfect. So attentive and…" Calleigh shuddered hard, body responding to sense memory. They hadn't made love in over six months, but her body still remembered. The press and weight of him covering her. Sweet kisses and even sweeter caresses.

Even as Eric's anger grew with each word, he had to shift in order to relieve the sudden tightness at his groin. He mentally berated himself for responding so intensely. He needed to concentrate on what she was saying. He couldn't afford to miss anything. The fact that Calleigh had lied to him, granted by omission, but still lies nevertheless, would be addressed but he had to suppress those feelings. He needed to know the truth now. He could freak out later.

"For the next couple of months, we dated and somewhere along that time, the relationship moved to another level. I'm not sure who fell first, but one day I realized that what I was feeling was love."

Eric's mind flashed back to the vision he'd had before he had come here. They rolled in the leaf-covered damp grass, tussling and each trying to gain the upper hand. Finally, laughing, she gained the top position and straddled him, leaning down, breath whispering against his, her face just inches from his. A smile curved her lips and she said quietly, reverently, "I love you." Eric swiftly closed the distance and reached up with his mouth to capture hers in a passion-filled kiss, communicating all that he couldn't say at that moment for lack of speech.

"I'd loved before. But this, us, felt different somehow. I think you felt the same. You said the words in return and from there, things changed. It was different. We were different."

"We were in love," Eric completed. He said the words Calleigh was afraid to.

She nodded and more tears slipped silently down her cheeks. "It was something new, I think, for both of us. I've never had the best track record with men and suddenly, I was with this person who I could literally tell anything to. My lover was my best friend and it had never happened that way before. Usually, the friendship came after the relationship had already fizzled out. We were so different I had no point of reference. I'm not sure, but I think you felt the same."

"I wasn't exactly Mr. Commitment before," he said quietly.

Calleigh continued. "A few weeks after I realized I was in love with you, I broke it off." Eric's breath drew in sharply. That explained the hollow feeling in his chest. "You have to understand, Eric, I was so confused. Things with us were so different, intense, and we worked together. I was worried about how our relationship would affect our work."

"You mean, you were afraid to be in love with someone who regularly played the field," Eric inserted, lips thinned in anger.

Calleigh shook her head. "It was perfect, Eric. We were perfect. Too perfect. It couldn't last, or at least that's what I told myself. And then you got shot and I spent so many hours waiting at your bedside, hoping and praying for a miracle. That you wouldn't leave me. I prayed and bargained and tried to make deals with God. You pulled through and then you woke up asking for Marisol. Something wasn't right. Besides that, when you looked at me, there was nothing in your eyes, Eric. Beyond 'nice to see my friend' warmth, there was nothing there. You didn't recognize what I was or had been in your life."

"You're the one who broke up with me," he reminded her angrily.

Calleigh closed her eyes again briefly and continued, "When I saw Alex outside your room, I told her you didn't remember Marisol was gone and she said sometimes memory loss is a part of the trauma that results from a wound like yours. You didn't remember me, Eric, and I thought, 'maybe it's better this way. Maybe we could go back to the way things were.'"

"And they did, for a while. Until I started to remember. That's what those dreams are about, aren't they? They're memories, of you and me. Together. God, I've been going insane over the last couple of months thinking I had no right to have these thoughts about you, about us, and this entire time, they've been my mind's way of showing me the truth. Showing me what you couldn't—no, wouldn't—tell me. Christ, Calleigh, you've been lying to me since I got out of the hospital," Eric swore, his volume increasing slightly with each sentence. Now that Calleigh's 'story' was concluded, he could feel himself getting more and more angry, with her, the situation, and irrationally, at himself. How could he forget something this incredibly important? After Horatio had told him Mari was dead, the memories had come flooding back, but that hadn't happened this time around. No montage. Instead, they'd started to filter in through his subconscious, trickling in a little bit at a time.

"Eric, I know you're angry—" Calleigh started.

"Angry?" Eric asked, a brittle laugh shattering the room. "Angry, Calleigh? Try livid. You've been lying to me by omission for six months. My best friend."

She flinched at his tone, but trudged on. "I know you're angry and you have every right to be, and I know these words seem trite, but I'm sorry. I should have told you from the beginning, the moment you walked out of the hospital. But you were recovering and it didn't seem the right time. And then Jake came back into my life and then it just didn't seem right to drop something like this on you. And I thought, what harm could it do? And I was wrong, in so many ways. I can't take any of it back, Eric, no matter how much I wish I could. For as many dreams you've had of us, I've had triple the amount of regrets. Regrets I didn't tell you when I should. Regrets that I pushed you away in the first place. I still love you," she finished in a soft whisper.

"What?" Eric asked, not sure if he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. It wasn't possible.

"I still love you," she looked up bravely into his eyes, the truth of her words shining brightly in their depths. No matter how much she'd convinced herself she'd moved on, Calleigh knew the truth. For the last six months, she'd tried to convince herself, her heart and her head, but her heart knew the truth. She'd never stopped loving Eric.

He shook his head and stood up, walked swiftly to the hallway, grabbed his jacket, and turned to face her. She had followed him to the entrance and stood a few feet back, having had to take a step back when he turned. "No, no, no. No, Calleigh. You do not get to pass go and collect $200. You can't just wave a magic wand over this and make it go away. The fact of the matter is that we were involved before the shooting and you broke up with me. Not the other way around. You're the one who kept our involvement to yourself. You're the one who 'moved on' with Jake. You're the one who decided everything for us. I'm done playing games, Calleigh. I'm done with you." At that, Calleigh had to suppress a sob. "And now, for the first time in almost a year, I'm going to make a decision and leave."

A sound behind Eric had him turning and Calleigh looking past him to see what the noise was. A gasp escaped her lips at the sight of Jake standing in the doorway, key to her place dangling in his loose grasp, a look of shocked surprise and hurt, anger and confusion on his face. Eric grabbed his keys and brushed past Jake, who still stood in the doorway, completely floored by what he'd just heard. Jake crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him as gently as he could in direct opposition to the way he really wanted to: slam it closed. Express the depth of his anger and betrayal. "What the hell just happened?" he asked tersely.

A jumble of thoughts were trying to fight their way to the forefront of her mind regarding Eric, but Calleigh could only process one: Just how much had Jake overheard?