Gillian stared out at the night from behind the wheel of her car. It was three in the morning and they were still sitting there, talking. The minutes crept by and she began to feel each and every one, all of them being spent while Cal worried and wondered about what she was doing.
And what was she doing? Having a conversation? Was this closure, or were they just dredging up the past? It was three in the morning, and all they'd established was that life had really sucked for a while, for both of them, and that it still sucked for Dave. He'd made it clear he was not over her, that thinking about their relationship was all that kept him alive when his job took all its dangerous turns. The thought made her chuckle.
"I used to daydream that you were dead." she said, since nothing they said to each other could make what happened any more painful than it already was. Now was the time to lay everything out, every word they'd been unable to share while separated. Gillian took a deep breath, and she looked to her right. Dave was watching her, unable to take his eyes away even in the painful moments.
"So I wouldn't have to worry about you anymore." said Gillian.
"I'm sorry." said Dave, like he'd said a million times already.
Gillian shook her head, No. They were both sorry, for lots of things. And maybe Gillian was being too harsh; she'd had her chances to leave him, to get out, knowing that their time of playing house would be over the moment his assignment changed. Then again, there'd always been that casual talk of retiring, of Dave getting out instead, and the comfortable denial that blanketed everything they did together - Dave would never leave, Dave would never get hurt, Dave would stay at the juvenile correctional facility and things would stay perfect forever. That had been their plan, to wait for perfection to play itself out without any work on either of their parts. They'd been foolish to believe it would work, but they'd both contributed to that fantasy.
Gillian shook her head no, because she didn't want to blame him. She'd loved him, and she didn't want to blame him, but the pain was surfacing and it made her angry. Now she realized that she did blame him. She'd let go of saying why did you leave me, and now it was replaced with why did you have to come back?
Gillian shook her head no, because she was certain Dave had not returned for the truth, or for her honesty. He wanted her to fall back into his arms and maybe make love one more time for old time's sake. Except it wouldn't be making love; it would be fucking, because Gillian was with Cal and Dave was still under witness protection. What a sudden fucking mess he'd made.
Gillian went back to staring through the windshield, because looking at Dave made her heart weak. She could still feel his gaze, she could feel the way his body sat comfortably in the passenger seat of her car, familiar and yet very far away from the memory of sitting there before. It was different. She wouldn't look over at him and smile.
"I was sleepwalking for months after you left." said Gillian. She frowned involuntarily, and she quelled that urge to cry. "I didn't go out. I thought my life was over. And then I convinced myself that you were never coming back. I had to, to move on."
"I tried." said Dave, shaking his head because even he couldn't believe how strong his feelings still were for her. "I tried to convince myself-"
"I succeeded." said Gillian. She interrupted him mid-sentence and with a look she released some of the anger she was so afraid to admit was even real. She was angry, because having no contact with Dave after being left behind was the only good thing that had come of the situation. Now she imagined receiving a letter or a phone call as she'd always wished, and she realized how much worse it would have made things, how much worse Dave's return made it now. She felt tears coming, like needles prickling her eyes and cheeks.
"It took me so long, but I was finally okay being without you."
The tears came, and she turned from him. His gaze also drifted, when the physical manifestation of her pain became too much to maintain his steady watch. He hadn't expected her to be this upset. Angry and hot for him he could have accepted. Even if she had been completely over him, he could have accepted it if she'd been at peace, but she was closed to him and uncomfortable with his presence. The worst from both sides.
He looked away and he felt an emptiness around him in the space that Gillian's body used to occupy. She used to laugh and cry in his arms, and now she turned from him. That was his pain, and that's what made him angry. She had somebody else.
"You had him." he said callously.
"No." Gillian said forcefully, her voice finding strength in renewed anger. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at Dave, because he needed to understand this little detail. "I didn't have Cal. I didn't have him until after I was over you. He couldn't stand to be around me after you left, because he knew. He knew I had given myself to you completely, and that we would have stayed together if you hadn't gone away. It tortured him to know that. That even though you were gone you still had me, for all that time." Gillian paused her tirade to wipe fresh tears from her cheeks, and she turned from him again. "So don't bring him into this." she added, with less conviction than before. She still meant it.
"He's pissed, isn't he?" asked Dave, as if he wasn't sure. "That you're here right now?"
"Wouldn't you be?" said Gillian.
"I was." said Dave, reminding them both of all those times he'd remained quiet while Cal teased them, every time she answered one of his calls. A shot of ice joined the blood in Gillian's veins, cooling what had just been hot with emotion. Maybe things hadn't been so perfect after all.
"You know why Cal's pissed?" Dave said, suddenly leaning forward.
Gillian anchored her gaze on the steering wheel, steeling herself against the confrontation. Against the depth of his voice.
"He knows there's a part of you that still wonders what could happen between the two of us. That part might be small right now. You might have shoved it down so deep inside of you that you can't feel it anymore, but it's there. That's why you're sitting here with me, instead of in his bed. You chose me this time."
"'This time'?" Gillian said, finding her footing right in his strong implication. She found her tears were dry from anger, and she could look him in the eye again. "I always chose you. To my detriment, I chose you. And look where that got me. I pushed my best friend away to keep you happy - to keep us happy - because I knew that's what it would take to keep us together."
She thought about Cal, about how long he'd waited, about how much worse he could have been to Dave. How Cal had been there for her the day Dave left without saying goodbye.
"We barely talked for four months." she said, of herself and Cal. "And that was after you left."
"I'm sorry." he said, adding to the ever-growing pile. The bigger it got the less she felt it. "I'm sorry I left you." he corrected himself, since he didn't feel sorry for Cal at all.
Gillian nodded. She may have let a few tears slip but she maintained a tight control on her emotions. "Well." she said, icier than before. "We all make our choices."
Dave was quiet as he digested that statement, another punch to his gut.
"Do you think I chose my job over you?"
Gillian shook her head, but the word no did not come out of her mouth. It was only more lamentation, regret that they were even starting down this road. None of it should have mattered anymore, because moving on meant complete forgiveness. But Dave hadn't moved on, and that prevented Gillian's forgiveness.
"Do you think I could have played it any differently?" Dave asked, poking her right where it hurt the most. "Don't you know I would have stayed if I thought it was safe for you?"
"You left for me?" Gillian asked incredulously.
"To protect you." Dave corrected her.
"You left to protect that case." said Gillian. "You told me I wasn't part of your cover, but you left me. You discarded me. Like garbage. I felt like your garbage that you could just throw away. And even after that, I still loved you."
There were those tears again. Anger coursed through her. She'd felt like garbage for so long and she'd never said it out loud before, not to anyone. She hadn't believed it until that very moment, but wasn't it the truth? Cover blown, get out of town as soon as possible, lose everything in the process. That was the procedure, and he'd followed it to the letter without hesitation.
Dave didn't see it that way. They'd gotten so far off track. This was not the way he'd imagined their reunion, not at all.
"I love you." he said. It was so simple, and so beside the point. It was all he had left in the world, and the only thing he had left to give to her.
"I have to go now." said Gillian. She shifted in her seat and put her hands on the steering wheel, as if she was waiting for him to get out before turning the key in the ignition.
"Gillian." said Dave. She made the mistake of looking at him again. He was so close. His left hand was on the back of her seat and he was so close. Gillian looked at his mouth. She'd dreamed of those lips. She'd used that mouth in every fantasy. It used to say all the right things. Now all it said were all the things she didn't want to hear.
"Please go." she whispered. With his right hand he reached for her. He cupped her cheek in his palm, the first time he'd touched her since that day in the hospital. A sudden heat joined the cold inside of her, like his touch had broken through all the ice. The flood of memories continued, not just of their relationship but the time they'd spent apart. She'd imagined meetings just like this, sneaking around just like this, hiding from the world just like this, in a car at night when it was just the two of them and Dave made a special trip just to see her. Those fantasies could never come true, not now that she and Cal were together. Gillian knew this, but she didn't move as Dave leaned closer to her. He was too close to look in the eye. She could only see his lips and she knew he wanted to kiss her. He needed to kiss her. Maybe that was the only reason he came to see her. He already knew about Gillian and Cal. He'd seen their relationship as an inevitability even when he was still with her. He didn't want closure, he just wanted her back, and it didn't make any sense because he was still technically undercover as someone else with no hopes of ever safely returning to DC, and Gillian would still be in love with Cal no matter what he said or did.
And none of that mattered, because he needed to kiss her.
Their lips touched, and it was wrong. She felt his hand in her hair, she heard his body shifting in his seat to get closer to her, and it was wrong. She couldn't wrap her brain around how bad it felt, to have wanted something for so long and only get it once the desire was gone. His lips still felt good - if things had been different they would have already been naked and fucking - but there were barriers now that Gillian needed to keep up, to maintain her honor, for Cal and for herself. Still, she didn't move. She didn't push him away. Things had already gone too far, but she didn't push him away.
Dave kissed her, softly at first, testing the mirage. She was real. They were really kissing now. So he kissed her harder, pushing closer, pressing her against the headrest of the seat in her car.
It didn't feel right, but Gillian found that wasn't reason enough not to kiss him back. Suddenly their lips parted for each other, and Gillian fisted both hands on the front of Dave's jacket, and she was making a sound she was only supposed to make with Cal now. A whimper, desperate, caught between their mouths as their tongues met and heads tilted to make room for noses as they pressed their faces against one another. Where was her anger now? This was her Dave, her Dave had come back for her and she wasn't allowed to have him anymore. It wasn't fair.
And it wasn't fair to Cal.
As suddenly as the passion returned, Gillian remembered the rest of herself and the kiss felt too wrong to continue. The whimper turned deadly and uncomfortable, and Gillian pulled her mouth away and bowed her head.
"No." her voice warbled, pushing her fists against his chest. Dave tried to kiss her again but she turned her head. "No." she said louder. The force she was using to push him away told him she really meant it and he backed off completely, sitting back in his seat in some sort of heartache-induced shock. Gillian, whose eyes had filled with tears while his tongue was still in her mouth, snuck a glance at him and saw that his eyes were wet too. He was looking straight ahead, overcome.
Even on the day he thought he was going to die, he hadn't shed a tear. He was coming close now.
"I have to go." Gillian said, not knowing what else to do but get as far away from this as possible.
Dave choked his emotion back by sheer will, and he swallowed hard. "I'm gonna come back here tomorrow night." he said. "And it might be the last time we ever see each other. Or maybe-"
Dave swallowed again. He didn't even know.
"Maybe it's not the last time." he said, improvising. "Maybe I can leave again. Take you with me this time."
Gillian's heart dropped into her shoes, onto the pavement below the car. It was another thing she'd allowed herself to fantasize about, running away with him to someplace else. Dave fantasized about it too, but he'd never seriously considered it an option until that moment, after tasting her mouth again, after being so close again and then being denied.
Dave had learned his lesson about losing her but it was far, far too late.
"I can't." Gillian said as she began to cry. Of course she couldn't leave; she had a life there, and with Cal it was turning into a pretty damn good one. What she really meant was that she couldn't even discuss the idea of leaving it all behind, it was too frighteningly absurd when faced with the real possibility.
"I know you're saying that now," said Dave, sounding desperate. "But I'll be back tomorrow night. Just think about it, Gill. Promise me you'll think about it."
Gillian shook her head and cried harder. She wouldn't promise him a thing. She couldn't. But they both knew she'd be thinking about it all day anyway. With her hands covering her face, Gillian heard the passenger side door open and shut. She looked up, to see where he was headed, to see what car he got into, to get some tiny clue as to where he was going. He just kept walking away, in and out of the light of street lamps until she couldn't see him anymore.
Gillian cried until she couldn't breathe. Then she drove home, and for the first time in a very long while, she spent the night alone in her own bed, hiding under the covers and wishing she'd never met Dave Burns at all.
Sharon Wallowski found Cal in his office the next morning. He was seated at his desk, leaned forward with his forehead cradled in his palms. He looked up without moving his head when he heard her footsteps.
"Oh." he said, grimacing at the sight of her. "That's...bloody spectacular."
"You look like shit." said Wallowski, on a hunch, before she was even close enough to know for sure.
Cal continued to grimace, disgusted by her honesty. He would have said the same thing if he were in her position, but the lack of sleep made him grumpy enough to judge. Wallowski felt a small pang of guilt when that look hit her. His appearance, the obvious lack of sleep, was about something very personal, not about a tough case as she'd first assumed. She'd never apologize - he would give her much worse - but she didn't continue with the sarcastic remarks either. It would only make him more difficult to deal with anyway.
"Do you have anything interesting to say?" Cal asked her.
"I've got a legitimate case that the department's willing to pay you for." she replied matter-of-factly. Wallowski raised her eyebrows and waited for Cal to respond in the positive. His response, though non-verbal, was So what?
"I know I owe you one." Wallowski began to complain. "I thought you'd appreciate me returning a favor here..."
Cal had a few choice words for that assumption, but he was interrupted when Anna appeared in the doorway. She'd hurried.
"You wanted to know when Dr. Foster was in?" the receptionist said politely. Cal nodded, and Anna went on her way.
"Wait here." he said to Wallowski, as he stood and walked around his desk.
He found her in the hallway, not even to her office yet.
"Dr. Foster?" Cal said as he strode with clear purpose. She turned at the sound of his voice, and he could see that talking to him was the last thing she wanted to do in that moment. "A word?" he said, making it seem like Gillian was an intern he needed to scold. That did not make the conversation any more inviting.
Gillian huffed as Cal took hold of her arm. She only moved with him to keep from being led to her own office, and she only pulled gently out of his grip so that no one else would notice things were getting tense.
"Cal." she said harshly, when they were in her office and the door was closed. In a single syllable he heard every other word she wanted to snap at him. He was too worked up to back down.
"You mind telling me what the hell happened last night?" he asked her. "Or should I continue using my imagination?"
"We talked, Cal."
"And then what?"
"We just. Talked."
"You saying those words doesn't change what's on your face."
"I'm exhausted." Gillian admonished him.
"So am I." Cal shot back. "I didn't sleep last night."
Cal waited for a response. He was staring at her, watching for the slightest twitch, but Gillian was staring right back and she wouldn't give anything away for free. She was daring him to question her about this, to take back what he'd said about trusting her. It's my business! her eyes screamed at him. I love you, it's my business too! he shouted back. They held it in out of respect for each other, but Gillian didn't understand why Cal couldn't let her have this one thing to herself, and Cal didn't understand why Gillian needed that in the first place.
"Two days ago," said Cal, his voice low and controlled. "You tell me you're with me now. That nothing could break us apart. And then Dave comes into the picture and I'm spending the night alone for the first time in months. Tell me how I'm supposed to feel about that. Tell me how I'm not supposed to be torn apart by the jealousy."
Gillian held everything in while he was speaking. She held it all in and let it build up because she didn't want to snap at him. None of this was his fault. He deserved an explanation, but she knew how he was. She knew too well. She tried to back down but the way he spoke about these things, for some reason caused her to resist taking the easy route.
"I'm still with you." Gillian tried to reassure him, though the words came out prickly. "But there was so much left unresolved-"
"He wants you back."
"Cal-"
"You want him back too?"
"Stop putting words in my mouth." Gillian snapped.
"It's the actions, love." said Cal. "They speak louder and they're something I can't control no matter how much I wish I could."
"What happened with Dave happened, Cal. I can't change that. I can never change what happened."
She was beginning to tear up, and her voice was following that shaken route. Cal could feel himself backing down. Her tears always turned him to mush, and he'd promised so many times that he'd never be the cause of them, ever again. Yet here he was, pressing her emotional buttons and making her cry.
"And maybe I'm not over what happened." Gillian admitted. "Maybe it still hurts. Maybe I still think about what would have happened and where I'd be right now if he'd never left. I stayed in that car last night because no matter how much you wish it was some other way, me being with Dave had nothing to do with you. Nothing."
Cal could hear the rest of the conversation play out in his head.
Just like you being with her, and her, and her had nothing to do with me.
But it did, Gill. In a way it had everything to do with you.
I don't ask you about Zoe.
That's different.
Of course it is. It's always different.
It played out differently in real life.
"The beauty of that, Cal? Is that me being with you has nothing to do with him."
Cal made a little wish in the moment that followed Gillian's statement. He wished Gillian's conviction, the fact that she believed what she said, was enough.
"That just means we're separate." said Cal, pointing out the truth as was his nature. He did so gently, because he had a hunch she was too busy hurting to see it from that point of view. "You didn't have the choice before. When he was gone."
The realization hit her hard, and it bounced back onto Cal. The way she looked at him, as if she understood what he meant too well to be defensive, it hurt them both.
"I don't see it as a choice." said Gillian, as gently as he'd spoken to her. They looked at each other, as the wheels of the conversation slowly stopped spinning on their own. There were only so many times she could say that to Cal. They weren't even angry anymore. Just sad that they were fighting again.
"I love you." said Gillian. "And there's no future for me with Dave-"
Cal almost interrupted her, but Gillian raised her voice and pressed on.
"Even if I wanted one. Which I don't."
"You better make sure that's true, Gillian. 'Cause you're going to have to face it if it isn't. We'll both have to face it."
Fear jolted Gillian, from certainty to confusion. Cal seemed way too willing to believe that Gillian leaving him was a possibility.
Crestfallen that he didn't believe her, Gillian excused herself from the conversation. All the time and energy she spent being sure, and he was trying to take that from her. She needed space, more time to cry, more time to think. She was going to go to the bathroom, to gather herself and splash water on her face - which, she suspected, looked horrendous due to the sleepless, sobbing night she'd spent alone. Cal hesitated for a second - she walked away abruptly - before following her out of the office.
"Gill." he said, intending to comfort her, to offer a shoulder instead of the judgmental eye. She'd stopped in the hallway, staring down the end of it, and Cal stopped in front of her. He saw her looking over his shoulder, and her expression changed from one of determination to utter disgust. She hadn't the control to hide it at the moment. With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Cal realized what she must be seeing. He looked over his shoulder, and saw Wallowski standing at the end of the hall, right outside his office. When he turned back to Gillian, she was staring at him in utter disbelief.
"Seriously?" she said, all but spitting bile on the hallway floor.
"She's here for business." he said immediately. The fact that he knew there was damage control to be done only made it worse. Wallowski was on the list of unallowed guests there at the Lightman Group. As difficult as it had been for Gillian to admit she had a deep, personal thing against Wallowski, it had been easy for Cal to agree to a ban on her presence. Nothing but trouble. he'd agreed. Anything for his girl. Though it wasn't like he'd fallen hopelessly in love with Wallowski and pined for a year after being cruelly abandoned...
"She's here for business!" he repeated, his anger returning as Gillian's remained fully intact.
"You take care of that business." Gillian said coldly as she backed away. "I'll take care of mine."
"Gill!" Cal called to her, his feet planted. He watched her turn and walk away. "Shit." he hissed, turning and looking back at Wallowski with murder in his eyes.
"What was that about?" Wallowski asked as he approached.
"I told you to stay put." he said. He passed her, went into his office, toward his desk.
"I'm not your dog." she replied, her patience with Cal unnaturally thin.
"Then why do you keep showing up on my doorstep, begging for scraps?" Cal asked as he sat at his desk.
"Two people are dead." Wallowski said plainly. "I thought you might give a shit."
Cal slouched, crossed his ankles and folded his hands in his lap. And then he stared at her. He stared until she smirked. He was only this much of an uncontrollable asshole - a mean one, without the undertone of humor - when he was truly bothered by something.
"Trouble in paradise?" she asked wryly.
"There's no such thing."
Wallowski raised an eyebrow. "As trouble? Or paradise?"
"What's the case?" Cal asked, squinting so he wouldn't stand and upend his desk in an ape-like rage.
Cal's face looked pained. He'd suddenly reached the very end of his patience. Gillian had spent the night in a car with Dave, her Captain bloody America, while Wallowski showed up at his office for business only - and it seemed Cal was being punished for both.