When Cal woke, he really wanted to turn over and go back to sleep. Because he felt exhausted. But of course, Murphy's law, as soon as he realised he was actually awake he kept on waking up, his heart pumping vigorously, alerting his mind as well to the fact that he was no longer asleep. Bastard. And then he noticed he needed the bathroom and the only organs who were completely ignoring the wakeup call were his eyes. He had to sit on the edge of the bed and pry them open, blinking furiously to be able to actually see through the foggy blurriness.

Cal came back to the bedroom and climbed back into bed. Gillian was facing towards him, her eyes closed, her face peacefully slack, so that none of the lines in her face showed. Not that Cal could see that in particular, not without his glasses and hardly any light. But he knew. He knew her face. And he remembered last night. The ranting and raving; the anger and anguish. His heart broke for her a little bit more; the last part that had not shattered last night, when she told him things about her childhood he had never known before. The poor woman.

And if she was going to talk about her childhood it got him thinking about his. He didn't consider himself to have had a great one. His mother had killed herself. That certainly counted lower on the scale than Gillian's alcoholic father and co-dependent mother. But only just. The difference between them, between Cal and Gillian, was merely in the way they had coped. Then and now. Cal wasn't a hundred percent sure he had really even dealt with all the shit from his childhood; it still played on his mind from occasion. But it did not eat him up in the same way it did for Gillian. Or maybe it was because he had been forced to deal with it so long ago, to stop himself from becoming his mother. And now all Gillian's buttons were being pushed and she had to stop herself from becoming her mother too. Maybe that was it.

Cal didn't know, he couldn't pretend to know and he didn't know where to begin in even understanding. His knowledge of the human psyche was more to do with how people hid their emotions and feelings, and how he could feret them out again. Whereas Gillian got into the 'why' and reasoned and explained. She could probably sit him down and tell him why she reacted the way she did, what it was about her personality that made her vulnerable... But Cal would have to wait for her to initiate any kind of conversation along those lines. He wasn't going to push her. Not on this subject.

After some serious staring Cal came to and realised his arm was killing him, from holding up his body weight. He shifted carefully and slowly, so he wouldn't jostle his wife, as he lay down again against the mattress, because that was a sure fire way to wake her. He was still on his back for a long time and just as he let his eyes flutter close, the exhaustion overwhelming him from behind, Gillian shifted. She stretched out, searching for him, and her hand came to his chest.

"Are you awake?" She murmured so softly it almost sounded as though the hiss of the sheets were louder.

"Yeah," Cal admitted.

Gillian came closer, bumping her knee against the edge of his thigh. Her arm extended over his torso until it curled around the edge of his ribs and her stomach was against his waist and then her head, in the crook of his neck. Oh, she gave the best hugs. The best.

"How you feelin' this mornin'?"

"Pretty crummy."

Cal chuckled, he couldn't help it, at her choice of words. Crummy. He'd not heard her say that one before.

"Is that funny to you?" Gillian asked sleepily.

"Not at all," Cal whispered back. "Sorry luv. I'm sorry you feel crummy."

His tone was so sincere it made Gillian shift to look up at him. Her blue eyes were glazy with sleepiness. Then she frowned and lowered her head again. "How badly did I sound like a lunatic last night?"

"Not at all luv," Cal reassured her, shifting his arm to place his hand at her elbow, about as much of an embrace as he could manage right now. With his right hand, the one Gillian was practically lying on, he searched for her other hand. Gillian slipped her fingers into his and he gripped her tightly.

"Sounded pretty bad in my ears," Gillian noted.

"Sounded like some much needed healin'."

"I hope so. I hope that was the last of it. I hope it's all out now."

What Cal wanted to say was 'me too' but he meant it as a relief for her sake, not for his, because, even though he might have felt pretty lost last night, he would handle worse from her if it meant she found her peace on the subject. That was one hell of a piece of shrapnel she was working on there.

There was a soft tap at their door and then the handle turned slightly and hesitated. "Are we awake?" Cal asked his wife. She nodded yes and Cal called louder-than-polite for whoever that was at their door to come in. It was Lewis.

"Here's hope now," Cal murmured. He signed 'good morning' to his son. His son signed it back as he came around the bed, to his father's side. Probably because Gillian still had her eyes closed. She could be either asleep or faking it.

"Can I have cuddles?" Lewis asked.

"Of course," Cal nodded and shifted his hand from his wife's skin to push back the cover to indicate to Lewis that permission had been granted, just in case the kid hadn't heard him. He climbed in and they both settled the blanket around them again. Cal smoothed his hand over his boy's arm this time; skinny little guy.

"I miss Grandma," Lewis noted.

"Me too," Gillian spoke up.

Lewis pushed himself up and leaned over his father's chest to place a kiss on his mother's head. She opened her eyes and looked up at him with a smile. She brought her fingers to her mouth, her hand straight, then moved it towards him. Lewis smiled and held up his hand, his pinky, index and thumb extended with the other fingers curled down against his palm.

"Me too," Gillian said again.