It was Owen's turn for dinner. Which meant fifteen year old Lewis was at the breakfast bar dutifully doing his homework when Cal finished for the day. "Greetin's," he said loudly to announce himself as he came into the kitchen.

"Hi Dad," nine year old Owen greeted. He was grating carrots carefully, watching his fingers.

"How was everyone's last day of the first week back at school?" Cal tossed his keys to the bench by the fruit bowl.

"Good," Owen answered absently.

"Lew?" Cal prompted when he got nothing but silence. Sometimes that was because the teenager hadn't heard him; sometimes it was a convenient excuse to buy a few more seconds of thinking before answering time. Lewis gave a shrug. Cal waited for him to elaborate, which he didn't, then looked around. "Where's Mum?"

"She's getting changed," Owen answered.

"Thank you Owen," Cal said and headed for the door. He rushed upstairs and burst through the bedroom door. He gave it a shove to swing closed behind him.

Gillian turned to him, startled, her hand slipping from the knob of her second drawer. She was half dressed. "No," she started to warn, raising a hand to fend him off, but Cal was already on her, pushing her back into the furniture.

"No what?" Cal growled nipping at her neck, his hands sliding down her back to squeeze her butt. Gillian struck the back of his shoulder blade, because he was using his teeth, and he laughed, turning his head to kiss her properly instead. He kissed her hard and deep and her fingers tightened against him this time, drawing him in closer against her chest. Cal had to break the kiss to catch his breath because it seemed Gillian was not going to give up first. Damn.

"No that," she panted.

"No?" Cal asked surprised, studying her. The silver hair dominated her temples and the fine lines were more frequent, but still fine. Next year she would be sixty.

"No distracting me."

"You're distractin' me," Cal teased, glancing down at her chest. Her breasts were pressed against his sternum.

"That was your fault. I have to supervise dinner."

"I'll do that."

"Which still means you have to go downstairs," she pointed out.

"Damn it," Cal muttered. He gave her another kiss, less intense this time. "Just tryin' to entice you for late-a." He gave her a cheeky grin and let her go. "The teenage-a is on silent treatment again."

"It's not silent treatment," Gillian almost sighed. She had told him this before, many times. "Lewis just processes in a different way." He should know that too. The kid had always been that way, thinking things through before voicing them.

"I asked how his day was and he shrugged at me," Cal noted, sitting on the chest at the end of their bed to undo his shoes.

Gillian finished finding the top she had been looking for when he came in. She pulled it over her head. "He just needs a little time to wind down after school. He always comes around," she told him patiently.

Cal didn't answer her. She was actually right. But Cal didn't like the nonchalant treatment when he got home from work. He enjoyed coming home to his family, he enjoyed seeing his sons; he'd like it if they were pleased to see him too. Gillian approached. Cal left his shoes on the ground and opened his legs so she could stand between them. She slumped against him in an embrace. "We love them no matter what they do remember? No matter how they act."

Oh yeah, then there was that. Cal remembered telling her that.

"It's not personal Cal. Lewis is probably testing you in some way we don't know about. He's fifteen. That's what he's going to do at this age. And then he'll get over it."

Cal nodded against her shoulder.

"You're friends. Remember that too. Not just his Dad but his friend. Don't be too hard on him. Maybe he just had a weird day."

Cal nodded again. Gillian pulled back and planted a kiss on his hairline. She smoothed her fingers over his skin, around the edge of his eyes. She gave him a slight smile. "There's my good boy," she patronised. Cal gave her an amused smile and Gillian pushed away from him to straighten up again. "Just talk to him. Help him with his homework. He often surprises you when you least expect it."

"Full of insightful advice today," Cal noted, getting up as she walked away to finish changing. Cal ditched his suit jacket and shirt to the end of the bed.

"Hey when one of us is acting crazy the other one of us has to act sane. You're usually propping me up."

"Lies," Cal noted. "Absolute lies."

Gillian laughed and told him she'd see him downstairs. Cal found a t-shirt on the pile of clothes slung over the end of the bed and sniffed it. It still smelt clean so he put it on and followed is wife. Owen had finished with his carrots when Cal returned and Gillian was instructing him to turn the oven on and take out the tray. Lewis was still focussed on his book. Cal took a beer from the fridge, offered one to Gill but she shook her head. Cal popped the cap and sat next to his teenager at the breakfast bar. Gillian was probably right. He needed to take a chill pill and regroup. He was acting a bit like a kid in a sandpit who's best friend just found someone new to play with. Lewis had been rather quiet growing up and Cal hadn't taken that personally. And Lewis was starting to grow out of it, there were days when he was bright and friendly. Maybe Gillian was right. Maybe something had happened at school.

"What are you workin' on Lew?" Cal gave him a slight nudge to get his attention, bumping his right 'S' hand over the top of his left 'S' hand.

"Biology," Lewis made two 'B' hands and angled them in front of him while rotating them around in wide circles, front to back.

"Right," Cal nodded. Science. He remembered helping Lewis to work out the rain cycle. Those were the days when the kid doted on his old man. Now this old man was a granddad to a three year old and almost to a granddaughter and his son was growing up. Cal took a swing of his beer. It was shockingly cold and he wasn't quite prepared for it; it startled him for a moment but he managed to cover it up. They went back to silence for a moment.

To be fair. Cal used to take a bit of time to warm up and get used to people too. And when he was processing he was often quiet. He watched Gillian and Owen prepare their evening meal for a moment. When Lewis was asked to set the table he got up straight away. Cal leaned over to the book Lewis was taking notes from to see just what biology in particular he was working on. 'Peripheral Nervous System' was the heading at the top of the page. The brain, Cal concluded. He had flashes to showing Lewis his brain scans, pointing out all the various areas of the brain and what they did. This was exactly what Cal, and Gillian, had studied in the first years of their psychology degrees.

Lewis came back and there was more silence. Cal had just about finished his beer now and was swirling the last mouthful around the bottom. "You like science Lew?" He used 'like' and 'science'.

"It's all right."

"Your Mum studied the brain when she went to college," Cal noted pointing to his head then, moving his hands, open, against each other then up in a short circle. Gillian gave him a glance, hearing her moniker, but Owen was digging around in the pantry for something he couldn't find.

"When she learnt to be a shrink?" Lewis signed 'psychology' then 'agent', which together meant psychologist.

"Yeah. You have to learn how to be a scientist," Cal explained. Scientist was the same 'science' and 'agent.' "So the brain and the nervous system, the endocrine system..."

"What's the endocrine system?"

"Hormones."

"Oh, we're doing that next," Lewis turned to the front of his notebook and showed Cal the schedule the teacher had handed out for the term.

"Cool," Cal noted. It was kind of cool, knowing his son was learning about that. But Gillian was also right, now that some time had gone by, Lewis was much more talkative. Maybe he had had a crappy day. As Cal had told her before, the more relaxed she is with their kids the more relaxed they are with her. Same went for him. "You wanna be a scientist like your Mum when you leave school?"

"I'm going to be a hip hop dancer," Lewis responded dryly, moving two fingers over his left palm, then 'agent'. Gillian heard that too and she looked over sharply, catching her husband's eye.

"Better get dancin' then," Cal noted, reaching over to wrap his fingers around his nearly empty beer bottle. "We can enrol you in dance lessons afta dinna."

"I was kidding," Lewis told him drolly, using 'joke'.

"I know!" Cal responded with a grin. He put an arm around his son's shoulders to knock the teenager against him. He gave him a squeeze and let him go. "You can have that," Cal nudged the rest of the beer towards him and swung his legs away to jump the short distance to the floor. He felt Gillian watching him again. When he looked over at her he could see she was laughing silently, then gave him a beam; an 'I'm proud of you' beam.

Cal raised his hand, his pinky, index and thumb extended while the other two remaining digits were curled down against his palm.

'Me too,' Gillian mouthed back from the sink.