She has come to love Dave Burns. He tells her the truth, even when he shouldn't, just so taken with her that he can't risk letting her go. She thinks she could spend a long while loving him. He's so different than Cal. He's purely sweet. He sends her flowers and takes her to her favourite places and does everything with her on his mind. He's not afraid of commitment, of submitting to love. He's the perfect man to get lost in. She almost forgets ever having wanted anyone else.
She remembers telling Ben, watching his face crumple, but he nods. He nods anyway because she was never meant to be his, even though she's not meant to be with Dave either. He had expected her to move from him onto Cal, not pausing to string someone else along between them. And the idea that perhaps he wasn't enough for her hurts him. He thought, at least for a while, that he had deserved her.
She's knocking at Ben's door and trying not to cry and he goes slack-jawed when he sees her standing there. He'd almost forgotten how much he had wanted her, still wants her. And he doesn't know what to say and neither does she, so silence hums between them for a moment. Then, a tentative voice.
"Can I come in?"
He almost wants to say no, struggles against the idea. He just doesn't want to go back to that place again, where his happiness was dependent on her, when he needed her more than she could ever need him. He knows that's where sex with her would take him. And even if that's what she wants, what she needs, Ben just can't give it to her. Not anymore.
"Okay," he says, opening the door wider for her to pass through.
They move to sit on the couch and Ben tries to say something, but all he can think of is how much Gillian had hurt him, how it hurts even more just seeing her.
"I'm sorry," she says, seemingly reading his mind.
But, she does read people for a living, particularly the things they don't want her to know. She can see his pain, his anger, his shame. She can see it all. She feels it now, too. What Burns had done to her had left her feeling the same way.
"What I started after Matheson and his gun," she sighs, "it was wrong. It wasn't fair to you and it was...destructive. I hurt you and myself, too."
He closes his eyes to the words, but hangs on to every one nonetheless.
"I'm sorry that I took advantage of the way you felt about me and everything you had to offer. I'm even sorrier for leaving you. It wasn't worth it," she explains.
There's a subtext to her words, he thinks, but he doesn't understand just what she means. It's the first time in a long time that Ben doesn't understand Gill.
"He hurt you? Dave?"
He's asking before he processes the thought and he feels stupid, so stupid, for bothering to ask. If everything was alright with Dave, she wouldn't be here. She wouldn't want to upset him by being happy without him. Coming to him shook and shattering all over him, it's the opposite of an "I told you so". It's an "I'm sorry, you were right." It's a "Please forgive me." And he wants to.
She looks up at him with watery eyes and she looks so different without a smile, forced and weak or otherwise. She doesn't look like Gill.
"He just left," she says.
And he understands what he had heard under her words earlier. It was guilt. It was guilt because now she understood what she had done to him, now the same had been done to her.
"I'm sorry," she repeats.
He isn't sure whether she is apologising for the sobbing that seems to swallow her or the pain she'd caused him, but it doesn't matter to him anymore. She's falling apart and he knows how to put her back together, even without taking her to bed. He knows how to fix this.
He pulls her nearer, wrapping protectively around her as she cries. She smells the same, the exact combination of sweetness and feminine musk. Her skin is still impossibly soft. He misses this closeness, misses her so damn much. He has to restrain himself from breathing her in, kissing on her like he used to. But it's enough. Him holding her, it's enough for the both of them.
She laughs as she wipes the tears from her eyes to cover her embarrassment. She hates to be vulnerable, but she is and it's only because she cares so much. She puts all of her hope into things, praying it'll act as glue, but everything falls apart around her. And she falls apart, too.
Ben sighs, stroking through her hair.
"He didn't deserve you," he says. "If you weren't the most important thing in his life, he didn't deserve you."
She doesn't have to say anything for Ben to know exactly the path her mind takes.
"It's not the same," Ben explains. "Emily's his little girl, no matter how old she is."
Her silence makes him ache and he struggles with finding the words to say. And all of a sudden, it's clear to him. He can make it better, but only Cal can make it okay. For Gillian, Cal will always be the answer.
"You should go to him," he suggests, his voice so quiet and calm.
She can hear how his voice shakes, even as he tries to cover it up and it surprises her what a great liar he's become through spending time around the Group, scares her even. If a man who was once transparent could become this good a liar, Cal could become impenetrable. But Ben wants her to go to him, even though for so long, he had wanted her for himself. Isn't that really saying something? Isn't that telling her the risks mean nothing?
She wants to tell Cal, she does. But what if he has nothing to say in return? What if he doesn't feel to current between them that Gill does? Cal has always valued truth over all else and Gillian knows she should give it because it could lead to her own priority; happiness. And she thinks for a minute: truth or happiness? She has neither at this moment, but hopes by the end of the night, she'll have both. Cal didn't even believe it was possible to have both. Was it really so naïve to think otherwise?