Chapter 7

Cal arrived home to find Gillian curled up on the coach reading. It wasn't a novel she held. It looked more like a journal or something.

"Can we talk about it now?"

She looked as though she'd rather do anything else.

"Sure. I guess. But I don't think there's much to talk about."

So she was feeling defensive and defiant. Even so, her words didn't really match up with her face.

"You don't?" he asked, incredulous.

"Pros and Cons? Cal? The cons way outnumber the pros on this."

"How? Like what?"

"Like, our age, the fact we've only lived together for a few months, Emily is about to start the most important school year of her life, the needs that those two boys will have – Max especially – would mean major lifestyle adjustments for us, the experience of the process… Cal. It's so invasive and it's so difficult to get through it and we could try but the odds are so stacked against us…"

"Ok. The pros? We're well within the age requirements. I checked. We qualify easily, especially given the unique circumstances. Emily is all for it. I told you, I talked to her today and she signed right up, even knowing everything you just said. And it's not the most important school year of her life, it's Senior year of high school. She's probably could have graduated this year if she wanted to with her brain. College is the real challenge, and she won't be here for that. And yeah, we've only lived together a few months, but we've been partners in one way or another for years. And the process of it; well that's unavoidable really, but we've got the support of his foster parents, the social worker that arrived on scene the day we found them was practically eating out of your hand, we have tons of very important people who would vouch for us, character references, whatever. Gill. The biggest con to this is that if we don't try we'll regret it forever."

"We? You're sure we'll both regret it? you've already raised your baby. You've had your family, Cal. Are you sure your not doing this for me? Because you think it's what I want?"

He shook his head at her in dismissal as much as disappointment. "No. No, Gill, and I'll tell you why… actually, first; did you know that I wanted Em to have a sibling?" he asked and she shook her head. "Yeah, I did. I wanted another one. When she was about five. Zoe was having none of it, which is fair enough. It's her body. Would have affected her career at the time. But I'd have loved it. Yeah." He drifted slightly and then shook himself out of it and brought himself back to the moment. "I thought, when we changed things between us, when we got together, I thought that it was just a case of going wherever you led me. I knew you had been applying to adoption agencies since the divorce from Alec. But I just figured I'd wait and see, you know? Wait for you to make that move. I was happy either way really."

He looked at her, looking at him sceptically, and continued his speech. "I remember when you adopted Sophie, and I got all broody for a while, but me and Zoe were already done. I was all angry and caught up in post-divorce misery. But when I watched you with her, I wanted that. And when I watched you and Alec with her, I was jealous of him. I think if I hadn't been so caught up in the breakup of my marriage, I probably would have realised that I was in love with you there and then and it wasn't just about wanting Em to be little again. Even while I was still a bit obsessed with Zoe and how hurt I was. I looked at you, with your baby, and part of me wanted her to be mine… We have a chance now, Gill."

She was doing that thing she did when she was trying to cover up a reaction that she could barely control, trying to keep her face as still as possible while her eyes were working overtime. He continued anyway.

"When we found those two boys, well you found them really but anyway, I was there. When we found them, and I watched you sitting there on the floor, the baby in your arms, Max sitting watching you and already starting to trust you instinctively even after everything he'd been through… I got this overwhelming feeling. This broody, paternal, messy emotional storm just… I wanted that, with you. I wanted to watch you with our baby, with our toddler. I hadn't felt a rush of love like that, like that particular paternal rush, since Emily was born... Gill… this isn't just about you. I know you been through it with Sophie and all those rejection letters and everything. And I know you're trying to protect yourself from that place you ended up in after they took her from you. I know it's a fear of losing a child that you already love. That you're already bonded to. And I get that. I don't want you to go through that again either. But, Gillian, you have to understand this; I want to do this. I want those two little kids to be part of us. Our family. And I'm already on the hook, Gill, just as you are. And if we don't try, it'll be just like losing Sophie again, just we'll know that maybe this time it could have been different."

Tears were streaming down her face. He blinked away the stinging in his own eyes only to find that tears were threatening him too.

"I'm sorry," she said through the sobs that lay beneath the surface but weren't allowed to escape.

"For what?" he asked as he pulled her from the couch and embraced her, wrapping her loosely in his arms and drawing her close. "What do you have to be sorry for, eh?"

"I didn't think you would want it too. Not this much. I didn't even think about how you felt in all this."

"That's nothing to be sorry for. I do it all the time," he joked. He got the watery laugh he was aiming for and she finally returned his embrace.

Once she settled and the silence fell between them she said, "Ok."

"Ok?" he asked.

"We'll look into it. As a maybe. See what they say."

"Yeah?" he asked with a tinge of excitement.

"Yeah."

They held each other in a loose hug, enjoying the contact, swaying lightly in place together. Neither made any movement when they heard the front door, with the sound of Emily Lightman dumping her bag in the hallway, her boots heavy on the floorboards.

"Is everything ok?" asked the teenager with an air of caution.

Cal kissed Gillian lightly on the side of the head, pulling her tighter against his body with one arm and extending the other out towards his daughter in invitation. "Yeah. Everything's good," he answered as Emily approached the huddled pair. He smiled at her with happiness behind his tired eyes, and as she joined the huddle from the side with her arms stretched wide to encompass both of them she thought about how right she was all along. He's so much happier when he's with you. He was never really alone with her in his life, but now he was happy. Gillian freed one arm from where it was caught between Emily and Cal so that she could wrap it around the teenager and grip onto her, binding them all up together. And all together they squeezed each other a little tighter still.

Cal sat at the breakfast table holding the paper that Gillian had abandoned last night when he forced their conversation to the topic of adoption. He shovelled cereal haphazardly into his mouth with his right hand, the bound stack of paper held under the milky spoon in his left. With every mouthful the document came under threat.

"Will you be careful with that, please?"

The voice from behind him almost caused the very incident it was trying to prevent. As Cal's spoon tilted sideways, her hand reached in and grabbed the paper from his grasp, just in time to avoid the spill.

"Oi, I was reading that."

"No, you were ruining that. That copy has all my notes on it."

"It's not bad you know."

"I'll tell him you said that."

"You'll do no such thing!"

"What? Afraid he'll find out you think he's a good scientist?"

"He's a plonker. But that's not a bad paper."

"Well, young Mr Loker learned from the best."

"What, you?"

"Exactly," she grinned.

Gillian threw the paper back on the table and headed to the kitchen to fix her own breakfast. Cal grabbed it right back up again and continued reading.

A/N: thanks for sticking with me! I haven't actually started to write the next one, but I haven't abandoned this series.

as always, if you spot any major errors please do let me know.