She invites him to her bed when she's scared and Cal is in danger. It doesn't surprise him. He can understand not wanting to be alone when someone you love could die and worry colours your every thought, every movement. He understands wanting to distract yourself, wanting to forget if just for a moment.
Cal had made her lie to Emily about where he was right now, just a week before Christmas. Afghanistan. God, the idea scares her beyond belief; Cal in his recklessness, spending time in the middle of a warzone. He could die. And if he didn't, he could still return dead inside. He could return scared and shaky and unable to be the man he was before, the man she had fallen in love with. Or he could come back the same way he'd gone. But what were the chances?
As Ben kisses her on the mouth, she thinks of Cal's goodbye. His kiss just shy of her lips, the smacking sound it makes. He was trying to tell her it would be okay, but they both knew he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure.
"Fear is healthy," she had reminded him, knowing intinutively that he was just as afraid as she was, even though she couldn't see it on his features, even though he didn't want her to.
But he is gone and Ben is here and he will make her feel better. He always does. He knows exactly the right ways to make her forget everything but his actions, forget even her own name. He knows how to ease her fears and lessen her pain with his mouth, his tongue, his body. He knows how to make it better. And that's why it is him she goes to when Cal is the problem. Ben knows how to clean up the messes Cal makes in Gillian, the messes Gillian can't clean up herself.
She needs him, she realises. She needs Ben to survive Cal. How could she hold herself together otherwise?
Ben knows. He seems to know everything in regards to Gillian. To feel needed by her, it makes his heart swell with pride. But also, he feels fear. Yeah, Gillian might need him now and for a while it'll be safe to feel attached. And then, one day she'll forget she ever needed him at all because she'll have Cal and he'll give her so much more than Ben ever could. She'll forget him. He won't get to love her, not even from the outside. Their ties will sever, every single one of them.
He pushes the thought out of his mind and focuses on pleasing Gillian, being what she needs. Because when it comes to her, there is nothing else.
It's two more stressful days before Cal returns. She spends each of them with Ben. She tries so hard to turn fear to passion and for the most part, it works. The thing about fear, though, is that we don't always know when it's there. Sometimes it lingers unfelt just beneath the surface, rising when we least expect it. At least, that's the way it happens with Gillian.
Her terror comes rushing back into her veins when communications with Cal cut out and she has no way of reaching him, making sure he's okay. And it sticks with her until she sees Cal walk into the Group's Christmas party with Emily on his arm. She is so relieved, she wants to cry, but she won't. She can't.
His embrace squeezes the last of the fear from her frame and she closes her eyes, breathes him in. And when he pulls away, she extends the contact, rubbing her hands across his face. She wants to kiss him, feel all the parts of herself once broken finally mend, but she isn't able to muster the courage. She watches as he hugs Torres, starts to compliment her then changes his mind. She watches him give Loker the paper snowflake for secret santa. She just watches him and somehow he knows to stay close, knows that she needs him near enough to touch. And the look in her eyes, it's truth.
Ben watches Gillian watch Cal and for him, it's heartwrenching. She loves him, it's all over her face as she looks at him. It's right there. How Lightman doesn't see it is something Ben will never understand. Torres and Loker, they see it too. It's written in the way they move further from the two, watching without seeming to. They love to think they're smarter than their bosses, seeing something their superiors can't. They're wrong.
Ben is sure that the pair knows how the other feels, but something is stopping them. Whether it's fear or risk or the idea of the right time, something is stopping them. Ben wishes he knew what, so that he could finally end Gillian's pain. When you truly love someone, you want what's best for them, even if it's not you. And what's best for Gillian is Cal. The only trouble comes in getting him to believe it.
It's hard to think Cal could ever believe that Gillian would be better with him, but she would be. And Cal, he'd be nothing without her. They were like oxygen to each other; they'd just breathe the other in without thinking, but couldn't live without them. They just had to stop breathing for a time to realise.
A/N: I am really enjoying writing this story & all the positive reviews I've been getting. Thank you! Anyway, this is the half-way point of the story. There will be two more chapters, which might be a bit longer. Hopefully, I'll finish this some point throughout the week. I love you all!