I am not sure this would make things better, but maybe more sense?
He was bowed down on the toilet, tears in his eyes and a sticky film of sweat covering his face.
He had been beaten, more than once, drugged and tortured, wounded and then some, but he had never felt as miserable as he was feeling that morning.
"Cal, are you ok in there?"
The knocking and the voice coming from the other side of the door were soft and nurturing, but the words sounded like nothing short of a mockery. Could she not hear the noises he was making, the nearly constant flushing of water? The door of the bathroom stall was really not thick enough to shield her from any of that, so why did she have to ask if she had no idea what was going on? And what the hell was she doing in the men's restroom anyway?!
"What do you think?!" He growled, the sudden anger bringing up another series of retching noises. "Bloody hell!"
Outside the bathroom stall Gillian bit at her bottom lip as she heard him go again, trying to think of her next move. Cal had shown up for work pale as ghost, grimacing anytime someone with a drink of food came within reach of his nostrils. Apparently he had been up all night doing pretty much what he was doing at that moment: being very intimate with ceramic while puking his guts out. Something he had eaten the day before obviously, but finding out what or why it had affected him so badly wasn't going to help him.
Then Loker came into the room, carrying a glass of water and a box of pills, looking concerned and, underneath, mildly amused.
"How is he doing?"
As if on cue, more retching noises and splashing came from behind the door, and Gillian gave him a knowing look. Loker smirked and nodded, starting to think that they were going to need some air freshener in there soon, then stepped closer to the closed door and tapped on it.
"I found some compazine," he announced.
"Under the door," Cal grumbled with a strained voice.
Loker obliged and slid both objects on the floor, then he and Gillian stepped back and waited for a few minutes. When Cal finally opened the door, after another round of flushing toilets, he looked worse for wear. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his legs bent and looking up at the ceiling. He was out of breath, sweaty and his overall appearance was a total and utter mess. The box of medication was open and they could see that he had taken three pills and drank all the water, and judging by his pained expression it was taking all he had to keep it all down.
"Feeling better?" Gillian asked, honest concern in her voice.
"I feel like someone took out my intestines and chucked them in a tumble dryer at full speed with a handful of pins and needles," Cal groaned, burping and then assessing for a moment whether he should jump on the toilet again before conceding with a shy smirk. "Yeah, a little better."
Then he tiredly stretched his arm and Loker caught on the meaning of the gesture, slowly helping him up.
"Cal, maybe you should take some more time," Gillian objected, watching closely as he looked dizzy when he got back to his feet.
He didn't respond, instead wobbled over the sink and opened the tab, letting the water run cold for a while before washing his face. Loker was at the ready with a generous handful of paper towels, and when he finished drying off his face Cal looked into the mirror.
"You look terrible," Gillian chimed in, and he smirked.
"Thanks," he mumbled sarcastically, but he knew she was being kind.
Terrible didn't cut it, not even close. Terrible might have been closer to describe the way he looked, circled eyes caved in by a sleepless night, reddened by the vomiting strain, hair all over the place and more likely a breath so bad he might just kill someone with it. Inside it was a million times worse, the nausea spreading through him reaching everywhere like poison ivy, aching in every joint, an overall sense of weakness and the dizziness assaulting him with every small movement.
"I'll be ok," he said then, not believing a word of it himself. "Just give me an hour or so."
"You don't have one hour Cal," she noted, careful. "We have a meeting with the Artosi board in 10 minutes."
Cal groaned, and this time it had nothing to do with his current situation.
"The stock traders? Why are we even considering working for them?"
"Because they asked, to start. Because it would be something different for us, and we have the opportunity to branch out."
"Stock brokers and traders are liars, they don't need us to teach them how to do it better."
"I can see you didn't even bother reading the brief. Cal-"
Her annoyed reproach was cut short when he gulped, then quickly ran back to the stall and just managed to hit the toilet bowl before it was too late. Gillian rolled her eyes, the whole thing getting on her nerves; not so much that he wasn't feeling well, that was nobody's fault really, but mostly because he was stubbornly ignoring it and using the little energy he had to question her business decision.
"You know what Cal, why don't you sit this one out?" She 'suggested' then, not really caring whether he didn't want her to see him vomiting violently or not. "Go home, rest, try to get better. I'll take care of this."
"Thought you said I-" Cal swallowed a lump of his own vomit and nearly went all over again. "You needed me for this one."
"When I thought you knew what was going on…and before you looked like you needed an exorcism."
Loker chuckled, unable to hold it back. Granted, that was truly the first time he saw them argue since they had broken up, but even with the puking it was somewhat entertaining. And oddly reassuring. They had been waiting for the storm to hit, for the seemingly civil and resentment-free split to be over and for the ugly side of it to come out, but nothing had happened yet. Sure, they were a bit odd and all the staff had noticed that they seem to avoid working together on cases involving couples, married or otherwise, but mostly they had been able not to cause the entire company to implode. On the contrary, the business clearly was the thing they wanted to protect the most, which made that day's confrontation a rather positive interaction.
"Go home," Gillian repeated, stern but not harsh, showing her concern for his health. She had known him for years and had never seen him with so much of a runny nose, and he clearly didn't look like he could hold his own. "Or lay down in your office, I don't care. But I won't have you in this meeting looking like this."
With that she left the room, checking her watch to establish exactly how much time she had left before the guests arrived. She had less than 10 minutes to go through the materials for the presentation one last time, make sure the meeting room was ready and gather her thoughts. No matter what Cal thought, that potential client was worthy of their time and science, and she didn't really didn't need his permission to close a contract. If anything, it was the other way around. He never bothered vetting clients, she was always the one assessing them, and then he had the unmitigated guts to take jabs at her for looking at the checks. She did, mind you, but she would never take a job she didn't believe in or wasn't comfortable with.
Gillian stopped at the meeting room on the way to her office, pleased to see that Torres had taken the lead and that everything there was ready. Then she carried on, going to her desk to grab the print-outs of the presentation before making her way to the meeting room with the intention to put them on the table, ready to hand out. While she traced her steps back she spotted Cal, half-followed and half-supported by Loker on his way out, and a small bitter sweet smile came to her lips. Yes, she didn't want him in the meeting looking and feeling the way he did, but she was glad that he had opted to take care of himself and go home.
Then she felt it, a feeling that had become familiar as of recently making its way through her, and she opted for a quick stop in the women's restroom to look for some much needed privacy. Her office didn't work, she had realised shortly after their split that it was no place to be thinking about the past.
Gillian stopped for a moment to ask Torres to be ready to welcome the visitors on their arrival, then handed her the presentations and went into the bathroom. Officially, to anybody else who would come in, it would have looked like she was just checking her make-up and overall appearance ahead of the meeting, but what was really going on inside was very different. It was hard sometimes, to think about what she didn't have anymore. With Christmas just around the corner, it was getting worse. That would have been their first big moment together, a special occasion, one she had been looking forward to even knowing that it would have been a battle between her holiday's spirit and Cal's disdain for it all. Yes, they had been stuck and going separate ways had been the best thing to do, but it wasn't always easy to forget. Sometimes it was a memory coming to mind, and pretty much everywhere she looked at work or at home would serve as a catalyst. Sometimes, like that day, was to see him struggle with something, even something so trivial as food poisoning. Sometimes, like that day, it was to see that he would still take her words into consideration.
After a while, once the thoughts had been pushed aside, Gillian took a deep breath and washed her hands, fluffling her hair a bit before leaving the restroom, right on time to welcome the representatives of the Artosi firm with a bright smile.
"How'd it go?"
Gillian nearly jumped on her chair when she heard his voice, caught up as she was in what she was doing. It wasn't a pleasant occupation, more an humiliating self-assigned task, but she'd much rather carry on with that than face the conversation Cal had just started.
She looked up at him, noticing how he had clearly showered and changed, and how he looked overall better than the last she had seen him in the morning. There was pretty much where the good news ended, because of what the answer to his question was about to be.
"It didn't," she answered quickly, not wanting to drag it more than necessary. Then she leaned back on her chair and sighed, shaking her head. "They didn't think we could offer what they were looking for."
Cal nodded slowly, probably more to himself than to her. Then he stepped inside the office and stood on the other side of the desk, hands in the pocket of his thick winter coat.
"I should have stayed," he mumbled then.
"Cal, you were in no condition to attend, let alone help."
She answered softly, glad he seemed somewhat bummed and still relieved to see that he was feeling better. But then he smirked, moving his hands to the back of one of the chairs in front of her desk, holding the padded edge tight as he shook his head.
"Seems like I can't afford to have a sick day once in a blue moon."
If he meant to be joking about, it was impossible for Gillian to tell. Aside from his words, Cal wasn't giving her much to go on. He was looking down, intentionally or not avoiding her gaze, just standing there with a body posture she had no reading for. Even her ability to read voices and analyse words seemed to fail her, as she felt completely unable to understand where that came from.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked then, not liking the fact that she needed to elicit an explanation but feeling that she had to in order to move forward.
"Nothing, never mind."
She still had no idea of what he meant, but the dismissive words he mumbled at her raised a big flashing red flag. This time she did pick up something, in that tone of voice that seemed to imply a lot more than what the first word meant, and in the two closing words who usually meant the opposite of what they said. Maybe it had been there before too, when she had been unable to grasp what he was on about, and she had just refused to read the signs. But it was clear now, by the way he spoke and acted, that he really had something on his mind.
"No, you meant something with that," Gillian accused him, standing up too not to give him that sort of positional advantage. "Just say it, Cal."
"Never mind Foster," he repeated again, absently waving a hand at her as if the conversation was suddenly inconsequential but unable to look at her. "We'll get the next one."
"I do mind, and so do you or you wouldn't have said that." She challenged him, making sure he felt how her eyes were digging into him and that he couldn't fool her. "Not the way you did."
Eventually, knowing it would have been cowardly of him not to, Cal looked up at her. He had heard it in her voice already, but he could immediately see the anger mixed in with pain and contempt, things he never liked to see on her face. She was looking at him with her chin up, defiant, and not for the first time in his life Cal found himself admiring how brave she was. Gillian was far better than he'd ever been at admitting defeat and learning from it, but she did have her own pride - rightfully so - and she expected to be treated as an adult and being called out on her failure instead of being patronised for them.
Cal bit at his bottom lip then and gave a small shrug, opening his arms in a questioning gesture.
"What happened then? Why didn't they go for it."
"You weren't there."
Her answer came so quick and direct that Cal didn't know how to reply at first. For only a second he considered countering with something along the lines of 'It wasn't my fault', but he thought better. Gillian had been the one telling him to go home and skip the meeting and she certainly wasn't going to put the blame for her own decision on him. But he could tell that there was still something behind that response, something against him even though, truly, missing the meeting had not been his fault.
Cal seriously considered bailing out of the conversation for a moment. He had gone back to the office to find out how things had worked out with the Artosi firm, but also to thank her for insisting he'd look after himself. He couldn't deny to himself that it had been nice to see her concern, that despite everything there was always some of that for him coming from her, and that she was looking after him. But now the conversation was turning into a confrontation, angst charging the air between them, and he didn't like that. For whatever the reason there had been none of that since they had broken up and he had thought that it was a nice thing, but only then, as he came to terms with the fact that they were in fact having a proper fight, he realised how grateful he should have been for that.
"We could have rescheduled," he tried then, still with the feeling that he didn't like the direction they were seemingly heading, but Gillian wasn't having it.
"Wouldn't have changed much," she scoffed. "You weren't ready."
"What do you mean? All I had to do was to give them the usual circus act and demonstrate."
"No, Cal," For a moment she looked more tired than anything else, physically exhausted by the fact that she had to repeat something to him for the hundredth time. "You weren't ready because you didn't know what the meeting was about. Even if you had been there you wouldn't have been able to sell it."
Anger and frustration came to the forefront for Gillian once again, and at that point Cal lost interest in trying to keep it kosher.
"Seemed like you weren't able either," he flexed, this time looking right at her with his own dose of defiance.
"Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't compensate for your absence," she shot back with no hesitation, her voice oozing with sarcasm.
"No biggie," Cal shrugged, not really trying to deescalate the situation but rather fuelling it with that pretend lack of interest. "I didn't want to help the money suckers anyway."
Gillian knew he was provoking her, that he was intentionally downplaying his interest in the failed success of the meeting as a way to rub it in her face. That was enough to make her blood boil, but the thing that truly bugged her was that he was turning into a childish game something that truly meant a lot to her. And then she laughed, a nervous laughter that wasn't even trying to hide her frustration and disappointment but rather showing it in his face with little to no regard.
She laughed again, nearly hysterical, shaking her head with a sad smile as she started to gather up her things showing she was ready to leave.
"You don't even know what this was about Cal," she snorted.
She was still chuckling away to bury the sadness she felt, taking her bag and putting on her coat. Cal watched her, not sure what to make of her sudden hilarity but understanding very well that despite being the one on the way out she was far from retreating and running away. He might not have come there with the idea to fight with her, but clearly she didn't mind making it rough and with the miserable night and day he had behind him Cal suddenly didn't feel inclined to let her have the last word.
"Of course I do, a big paycheck!" He chimed with a fake cheerful tone leaking disgust and the worst kind of irony.
"Is that what you think?" Gillian hissed back at him, a flash of hurt in her eyes that Cal prayed he was just imagining. "That I only care about the money?"
He shrugged again, a little voice inside his head trying to warn him that maybe he was pushing too far considering the way she looked. But the voice was too low and the rest of his brain was too heavily engaged in a victory parade already for him to be able to stop before it was too late.
"You sure do talk about it a lot."
He threw the remark at her as if it was a discarded piece of rubbish, leftover food thrown at a dog or an unimportant paper to toss in the bin. Cal did have the last word with that, it became immediately clear by the way Gillian suddenly deflated, all her defiance and anger gone. However, the celebration was short lived, because when she looked at him with a steady yet deeply hurt gaze he felt utterly horrible. But before he could even think about showing regret through his face Gillian walked around the desk and slapped the unsuccessful presentation for the Artosi firm she had been trying to fix on his chest and left the room without saying a word.
Next chapter on December 26. Get ready for another trip down memory lane...