A million thanks, once again, to Sidney James TD Lemon 1900 (Sorry, Sid, couldn't help changing it a little; maybe the story didn't need what I tacked on, but I did x] ) and to all of you who stuck it out every time I took decades to update. Good things come to those who wait; here's your final chapter.

Standard disclaimers, etc.

- W

Gillian

She remembered the first time. She'd followed him to Marty's Tavern, like she'd done forever now, and stood in the door of the place looking for him. Marty had given the customary nod and gestured with his scruffy jaw at the usual table. Cal was sitting there, elbows up on the scarred table, hands clutching a glass. She'd stared at him with an unfathomable grief. His shoulders were slumped, just as they'd been that very first time and every time thereafter, eyes unreadable. And the cane, leaning against the table. The scars weren't visible from here, from this angle or this distance, but they were there. The cane told her so, as if she needed reminding.

For the first time since she'd started coming here, Gillian took a table alone and just watched him. She felt useless. She'd never been able to help him, not really, with the memory of Zoë and what his life should have been like. Now that there was Ward, and that damned cane, she knew she could do even less.

'What can I getcha, miss?' A chipper waitress asked. For a second, lost in the past, Gillian had thought it was Jenny. But no. This was 2010, and Jenny hadn't worked here for years. This one's name tag told her 'Christen.'

'She'll have a Rigori, and I'll have another.'

'Nothing, thanks.' Gillian said around the knot in her throat. 'Wait - that man in the corner there? Bring him a Rigori for me.'

'Sure thing. Who from?'

'The lady across the room.'

Gillian watched Cal as Christen vanished behind the bar with her order. He didn't move. He wasn't smoking this time, and the whiskey hadn't been touched. His hair was getting in his eyes.

She wasn't sure why she'd told the waitress to take him a Rigori. Was it because that particular cocktail had become her trademark on these meetings? A tip-off that she was here? Why had she done that?

Maybe because it might be time now, after years of her going to him, for Cal to come to her.

Christen carried the drink, under Gillian's watchful gaze, to Cal's table. He looked up without smiling, and his eyebrows drew together as she placed the drink on the table. Though she was too far away, Gillian could hear her telling him what it was and who it was from, and even, she swore, the light thuk the glass made against the wood of the tabletop. As Christen peacocked off to take care of her other tables Cal's eyes swept the room once before alighting on Gillian. She kept her face blank, meeting his gaze for a split second before turning away. She gave him the option of not coming over.

There were marks on this table too, right beneath her folded hands. One polished nail touched a faded C, and when she moved a little she could distinguish an & and a G. C&G. She smiled ironically and moved her hands away completely.

He slid into the booth across from her, placing the Rigori on the table with the same thuk she'd imagined minutes ago. She heard his breath rush out of him, smelled his cologne. He'd told her once it was called 212, something he'd found by chance while shopping with Emily in some boutique somewhere. She liked it. It complemented his natural eau d'homme.

'Believe that's yours.' He told her, meaning the Rigori. She looked at him and said nothing. He just looked back. His left eye still hadn't regained its former hue; she'd begun to think his stare would be mismatched forever now, half no colour and half all. The scars peeked over the collar of his black Oxford, buttoned uncharacteristically all the way. Without thinking she reached over and undid the first two buttons, hating the sight. The skin of his collarbone shone white and textured in the half light.

He flashed pain and reached up to pull the shirt together, but she caught his hand and held it centimetres away. He was stiff with the effort of not resisting. She was so glad he'd come over.

'Why are you here, Cal?'

She thought he might give her the same answer he'd been feeding her for years, the one that had no meaning, but tonight he looked at her and told her with his eyes that he wasn't going to dance.

'I don't know.'

'You're wasting your time,' she wanted to tell him. 'Wishing. It's not going to come back, What you had. What you should have had. The future is all you've got.' She didn't. He wasn't smoking. He knew.

'I'll take you home.'

His keys were in his pockets. He was altogether sober, but he let her drive him to his place and guide him up the stairs. Emily was asleep, the door to her bedroom closed. It still pained Cal to bend his knee past a certain degree, and he held in a grunt the whole way up. Both for Emily and herself, Gillian knew.

She eased him into bed, pulling off his socks and shoes and unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it off his shoulders. The shoes she placed at the foot of the bed, the socks and shirt she folded neatly and placed on the chair because his chute was in the bathroom. When she was done Cal had worked the covers over himself, but only up to his waist. The tattoo, intact, stared up at her from his chest. She pulled it up to his chin, like he was a child, and before thinking she reached out a hand to stroke his cheek. He caught her wrist and whispered into the dark, his tone even but the words so vulnerable they broke her heart: 'stay with me?'

She had. It felt like home, like wishing. Like an old house that used to be hers, except someone else had moved in and now she was just a stranger standing on the threshold of a place she remembered, had loved, now longed for. Not hers. But home all the same.

Cal

Cal and Zoë had agreed without speaking that it would be best for Emily to stay at her mum's while Cal healed. It was just as well; Gillian stayed on nearly every day, and in the mornings he caught her looking at him with a haunted expression. He also noticed that he was waking up with a dry, raw throat, and put the two together: he'd started talking in his sleep. Or screaming. He didn't know which. It was best that Emily didn't witness either.

But she wouldn't stay away indefinitely. The first night she came home was only a month after the hospital discharged him, and he spent the entire evening lying to her. They watched a movie, a stupid musical romance type thing, and Cal had to pretend to be insulted by it, making loud comments in the middle of dramatic numbers and, once or twice, blowing a raspberry when somebody started snogging. It was worth it; by the end of the film Em was laughing with indignation and calling him a jerk. Convinced he was back to normal, or at the very least allowing herself to believe. Then, when she went to bed, he'd stayed where he was the whole night, staring at the menu screen in silent agony.

Gillian had come to him that night, like an empath in some fairy tale, letting herself in and gliding through the dark house to sit beside him on the sofa and gather him to her. They stayed that way the rest of the night, until she fell asleep in his arms and he fell into the trance that had largely replaced sleep. She'd been warm and soft against his chest, real and breathing, and he'd abandoned himself to that feeling.

He wasn't sure exactly when he'd given up altogether. Not sure of the exact moment the acting had become automatic, or when he stopped smiling even to pretend.

Work. Dinner for Emily if she was here. Upstairs, get lost. Bed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Point?

And then there had been the fourth of July.

'What does that mean, Cal?' She said. Her voice was even. The windows of her office were open, airing out the smells of cleaner and paint. A night breeze whispered in now, touching first her and then Cal. He said nothing.

'Tell me the truth, Cal.'

'I don't know what the truth is.'

'The truth is what hurts to say out loud.'

What hurts? What hurt was that he really did love her, loved her with every mauled fibre in him. What hurt was that he wasn't completely sure he was human anymore, what hurt was that he didn't have the energy to seek out truth or follow love or deal with people - any people. Torres or Loker or Zoë or… Emily. Oh, Emily.

Didn't have the energy. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd touched, had all brought him to that warehouse with the Ward brothers. That was all it had earned him. And that had fucking well killed him. What was the point?

That was what hurt. He couldn't dredge up the will to give it to her.

Alternative? If he told her, it was just an act, Gill, it wasn't real, I didn't mean a word of it? That would hurt too. Because that would hurt her. And even as he was now… how could he do it, even for her own good?

After all, he knew the sort of lover he'd been for the past few months. Unresponsive, uncommunicative, walled off. And he knew, he knew, god damn it, that even that hurt her. Any way he stepped, he broke her, damn it, damn her. He couldn't handle this.

'Help me, Gillian.' He didn't hear himself say it until the words were already hanging, bloated, in the air between them.

She looked at him. The cool summer breeze toyed again with her hair, conspiring with the city lights that haloed her to give her all the presence of some avenging goddess. Cal clenched his jaw, recoiling as he realised what he'd said, and turned to flee.

Gillian

She didn't let him go, obviously. Instead she lunged forward and grabbed his arm, spinning him around. He stumbled, his bad leg a little to slow to catch his weight, and his fist reflexively grabbed a handful of her coat to keep him from falling, but she showed no pity. 'Say it.' She demanded. 'Say what hurts.'

'It all hurts. None of it hurts.' He told her, eyes wide with fear as he struggled to get his leg under him. With one hand she seized his waist to steady him and his jaw with the other, forcing him to look her in the eye. What was she doing? She didn't know. She did it anyway.

'Say it anyway.'

'I… I… no.'

'Then I'll tell you.' And she proceeded to pelt him with every piece of his soul she'd read and understood over the past several months, every lie and every painted smile. Her heart pounded wildly as she did - what if she was wrong, what if she'd read him wrong, what if this sent him over the edge whatifwhatifwhatif - but she didn't stop until she had no more bullets to fire: 'You know I love you, Cal, and you love me in return, more than you care to admit, and what would hurt the most to say is that you don't think you're strong enough anymore for that. You could have told me it was just an act, but you knew that would hurt me, and thank you for that, Cal. Thank you, but snap the hell out of it.'

He'd fought her like a caged animal, at first, but by the end he'd gone completely still, until the only thing distinguishing him from a wax mannequin was his breath beneath her clenched fist. He stared at her like an inmate in an asylum, eyes vacant and unresponsive, but she knew him. She knew he was listening to every word. She knew she was reaching him. And with that last, when she shook him and his head juddered back and forth like some sick bobble-head, his arms went up to her shoulders and he shook her right back.

'You snap the hell out of it.' He barked, looking almost angry. 'Of course I bloody love you! But what am I supposed to do, Gillian? There's no point! I don't care enough!'

Before she knew what she was doing she had wrenched out of his grip and shoved him backward to keep him busy a moment while she darted across the room and mounted the windowsill. The summer breeze, gentle from inside, assaulted her like a brick wall at the same time the cityscape, three hundred feet below, appeared to rush up to greet her. Adrenaline spiked as she gripped the window's edge, crystallising the view to Technicolor perfect. She imagined her pupils had dilated to pinpoints. Ow. That was interesting.

It took all of thirty seconds to get up here. By the time she noted the panoramic view, Cal's arms were around her legs, pulling her roughly back in. Lincoln, a study in white, was the last thing she saw before tumbling back into her office and landing on top of Cal. Her ears were ringing; belatedly, she realised he'd shouted. Loudly. Gillian rolled off him and put a hand to his face. He was livid, but breathing hard and unable to get out much more than a few wordless noises of fury. She couldn't help smiling. 'You care enough.' She patted his cheek before letting herself collapse on the rough carpet beside him. 'You care enough.'

They lay there for a few seconds, panting as if they'd run for their lives, saying nothing. Finally Cal managed a pair of words: 'Sodding owwwwwwww.'

Gillian burst out laughing.

Cal; July eighth

Richie came to see the new building one night after everyone else had gone. He was looking slightly exasperated; Cal deduced that he'd had to strong-arm a couple of goons into waiting by the car. The lanky Italian still managed to glide in like a shadow; Cal's lip twitched in amusement.

'Hello, Richie.' He'd been expecting a visit.

'Hello, Lucci.' The shadow observed him from the doorway of his office, only his face visible in the cast-off glow from the city below. Cal watched his eye travel over him, feet up irreverently on the desk, Oxford open to the third button down, exposing shiny damage, his face flippantly scruffy. The cane, leaning on the desk within easy reach.

'I hear you spent some time with an old friend of ours, Lucci.'

'Oh, yeah. Several months ago, now, though. Getting a bit slow with age, mate?' But Cal knew why it had taken Paolo so long.

Paolo let the comment slide, striding into the room and folding his long legs into one of the comfortable chairs opposite Cal. He put up his Armani boots too, the long, expensively clad mirror of his old university friend. 'I wanted to kill him.'

'No need. He's dead already.'

'The brother?'

'Don't touch him.'

'You don't pity him.'

'Yeah, I do. Imagine being in his place.'

'I'd rather not.'

'Exactly.'

'How did you escape?'

'Told him I didn't have anything to do with the mafia.' Richie blinked, absorbing this, and then threw back his head and laughed. He had a deep-throated laugh now. Almost sinister.

'Oh, not all that long, anyway,' Richie chuckled eventually, 'only since you roomed with an underboss at college.'

'I made him think I was Jesus.'

'You - wait, what?'

'He was obsessed. I quoted the bible at him till he thought I was God.'

'Well, that - Christ, I suppose you'd call that a long con. How the hell did you manage that? My best guys wouldn't have been able to keep up the lie that long. You sure you don't want to be my consigliere?'

'Fuck off, Richie.'

'Yeah, I know. You're not even Italian anyway.' He didn't voice the other thing. He knew Cal was aware of it, and that was enough.

'You've got a family now.'

'In so many words. An ex-wife, and a daughter I'd die for.'

'Emily.'

'She's got Zoë's eyes.'

'Only the colour. The rest seems to be yours.'

'Nah. She's not got my conker.'

'Thank God for small favours.'

Cal liked talking about his girl with Paolo. It wasn't new, him knowing everything about Cal's life. He kept tabs. It was like having a guardian angel, or a fairy godfather.

All right, not a fairy godfather.

'And then there's Signorina Foster.'

'Yeah. And then there's her.' Cal's vague smile faded. He glanced at the cane.

'Why do you look at your cane when you hear her name?' Paolo asked.

'Fuck off, Richie.'

'Not this time, Lucci. It was my fault. You can't keep me from doing what I can.'

'It wasn't your fault, you great pillock. How were you supposed to know she died?'

'You're deflecting.'

'Yeah, I bloody well am.'

'Do you love her?'

Cal glowered. 'We're blokes. Blokes aren't meant to talk like this.'

'Only British ones. Italians get it all out. Do you love her?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I do.'

'Then forget the cane.'

'How do I walk, then?'

'Cal.'

'Like to see you do it.'

'Cal.'

The scientist smashed a fist onto the desk without warning. Ricci regarded him calmly as Cal struggled to contain his sudden anger, every plane of his body hard with the effort.

'Four days ago you didn't think you had the strength to face the world again,' Ricci said, his smooth tenor calming, like a balm. 'You thought you couldn't feel terror; you did. You thought you couldn't feel devotion; you did. Tonight you thought you couldn't feel fury; you do. You're healing, and you know it.'

'Not enough.' Cal bit off. 'It's not enough. She had to jump out of the fucking window -'

'That's a lie.'

'Yeah? What's the truth?'

'Stop holding back, Lucci. You've never held back.'

'No, and look where it got me.'

'You're holding back now, and look what it's doing to you.'

'What, you want me to sock you?'

'I could take you.'

'Fuck off, Richie.'

Ricci smiled and stood. 'Sure, gimpy. Don't hurt yourself.' He turned his back, making for the door. 'Gimpy' came up behind him like a force of nature and jerked him around, pulling him into a fierce embrace. Surprised, Ricci was a moment in returning the gesture. Cal clapped him on the back before letting go.

'Now get out of my building before I call my dogs on you, Scarface. I got a girl to catch.'

'Yeah, yeah. Oh,' Richie opened his designer messenger bag. 'before I forget, I brought you a present.'

Cal took the gift, frowning at the change of pace. It was a thin, black leather bound book, with the words Truth's Champion embossed in silver on the cover. He opened it. Inside were five articles from the Washington Post, smoothly cut and laminated. Truth Hurts; Truth's Champion Dead; Truth and Terror; the Hunt for Truth; Moment of Truth.

'Figures.' He snorted, flipping through the pages, 'Not a word for eight years, and suddenly they're all over me with catchy titles.'

The last page was different. He squinted at it, reading the title: Truth's Champion Lives. The rest of the page was blank, though it too was newspaper. He understood immediately. This was the blank page of the rest of his life, to be filled with new deeds and truths where no words would have filled it had his life ended in that warehouse off Emerald. Truth's champion lives.

Cal looked up at Richie, who smiled.

'Go see about that girl.'

END

Reviews fuel my muse - any takers?

Reviews fuel my muse - any takers?