Here we are, last update of the year! Probably resuming posting on January 3.
Guest: of course he still have feelings for her, and so does she. But this was about them as business partners, about the professional respect Cal failed to show her in the past. Ruining their original relationship was their biggest fear when getting together, they have to fix that before anything else.
Now: Mary and Just, I intentionally ignored your jabs about Cal's date because this chapter will have your answers.
Just taking one extra moment to wish you all a Happy New Year and see you later!
"Bloody hell Em!" Cal grumbled, knowing who was calling him at that ungodly hour even without checking the caller ID on the phone. "Gimme a break!"
He kept growling and mumbling to himself as he rolled on the bed, easily finding the phone in the dark thanks to the luminous scree and the ringtone providing a more than obnoxious guide. Once he took hold of the device he sat up against the headboard, sighing and mumbling more annoyance when he realised that not only his daughter was calling him and an hour that, whoever late, didn't justify him already be tucked in bed and half asleep, but that the call came after a series of unanswered text messages he had slept through.
Where did my life go? He whined to himself, trying to remember that last time in his life he'd been in bed before midnight, then sighed and picked.
"What is it, Em? Isn't it a little late to chit chat?"
"It wouldn't be if you answered my texts…and nice to hear from you too by the way," she immediately snapped back at him, then Cal heard her gasp and smirked, knowing more late night misery was coming his way. "Hold on, I am….bothering you?" She asked then, a trace of hope in her voice.
Of course he knew she didn't really mean 'bother', she was his daughter and she knew very well she would never have to worry about anything like that being remotely possible. He also knew that the little pause before she said the b-word meant that she had carefully evaluated her options before deciding what to go with. Lots of mental work and thoughts, lots of attention he'd appreciated under different circumstances, but not that night.
"No Em, you're not. Never, by the way."
"Well, uh…are you-"
She hesitated again, the pause longer this time. Cal smirked again, easily picturing her biting at her lip and scrambling to find the right word, anything to avoid saying 'alone' with that sad voice she suddenly couldn't shake.
"By myself, yeah. You're not interrupting anything," he offered, mercyful. "Matter of fact darling, I was asleep."
"But Dad, weren't you going on a date tonight?"
"I was, I did." Cal confirmed with a sigh, more worried about letting her down than anything else.
"And?"
God blessed genetics, she sure had gotten all that smugness and insistence from him, hadn't she? Most of the time it made him smile, but that night he really wished she had also inherited someone else's ability to just let go of things.
"And I'm in bed by myself, what does that tell ya?"
He was trying to make light of the situation and joke about it, more for Emily's sake. He didn't care how lame that made him look, he was far too old to worry about something like that, but he knew how important it was for her.
His romantic life, or lack thereof, had been his daughter's main concern for years. First because he wasn't getting out there after the divorce while her mother had moved on seemingly quickly, then because he wasn't serious with any of the women crossing paths with him. Then she had dropped on him the whole 'do you love Gillian' bomb, and it had been weeks of nagging and provoking into making a move. To Emily's credit, she had been far more lenient when they had split up, especially once she had seen that he wasn't going to self-destruct and that at least his original relationship with Gillian seemed to have survived.
But then weeks had gone by, turning into months, and obviously Emily had waited long enough.
"Did you at least try? You promised me you would."
"I did Em, I swear," he mumbled, straddling his face with an open palm. "I picked her up, asked her about her job and her day. I even asked her to dance."
"And?"
"And nothing, Emily. No spark."
"Not even a kiss? Dad, she looked really hot in her profile picture."
Cal groaned, not for the first time thinking that nothing of that interaction was appropriate. Why was his 19 year old daughter so hell bent on him getting laid? He was going out on dates, he was trying, he was keeping his word: why couldn't she just be happy with that?
Emily had made him promise, swear even, that he would try. First, she had begged him into going out with a friend's mom, right before the holidays, which had been less than memorable. Then they had been spending Christmas and the holidays together in Princeton, none of them feeling like being in Washington for such a Gillianesque occasion. Cal had felt extremely guilty that because of him a long lasting tradition had to be quashed, and because Emily had been forced to jump through hoops to hide the fact she missed spending at least a bit of the holiday with Gillian. Of course, the cheeky girl had taken advantage to dissect his ugly attempt at going out with someone, alleged that he was out of practice and then cornered him into conceding something. So he had promised Emily five dates, enough to show he was really trying and not just taking her for a fool. Technically it was six: he had thrown in a bonus one because the first one, with the friend's mom, had come the night of the sign reveal and really, even the most perfect woman in the world would have had no chance on a night like that.
That night had been the fifth date, one more to go and he couldn't wait to get it out of his system.
He had tried a bit of everything; dinners, coffees, movies and art exhibitions with blondes, brunettes, redheads. He had been bored, mildly amused, sometimes annoyed, but never intrigued and certainly not aroused. Casual dating to get to know someone simply didn't suit him, and it surprised Cal that Emily couldn't understand why. What was for most people a common conversation opener - 'what do you do for a living - in his case was actually the one question that could put an end to the whole thing. Women didn't like to be read on dates, not once they understood what it really meant. At the very least they got nervous, but he could work with that and joke about it; he could impress her with some examples and be cheeky, even flirty with it but eventually they would start looking at it past the novelty of a date topic. He could see it, he had seen it every time: the thought of what being with someone like him might mean in the long run, making its way through their minds and raising red flags all over the place.
He knew what that meant, where that thoughtful look would lead, he had been there before with Zoe. It hadn't been there with Gillian, for obvious reasons. She knew that about him when they had first met, more than that she was one of few people in the world who could fully understand what it meant. Even knowing now about the peculiar circumstances of their first encounter, Cal knew that the lack of fear for his ability on her face back then had been honest, overpowered by the professional curiosity for it all and maybe just the lightest touch of admiration.
Whatever doubts she might have had about them starting something more than friendship had never been about his science…God knows she had enough reasons even without that! And, most importantly, whatever he could she could do too, better than him even.
"She did, but not much going on behind the good looks," he tried to explain, thinking that as a young woman she might even appreciate knowing her own father was interested in more than just a pretty package.
"Could that be because you have unrealistic expectations?"
There she goes again! Cal tough as he bit at his lip, muffling a moan behind his sealed lips.
Emily wasn't wrong, but she wasn't entirely right either. It wasn't just about measuring other women against Gillian, an unfair comparison really, and he was actually going out of his way not to do that. It was about him. For all his bravado, all the teasing and flirting, and playing into being a ladies man… There was a reason why there had been no real relationship after his divorce for a long time. It was so much easier to go after someone and give in to the thrill of the chase knowing the pleasure would be disposable, single use only, and sometimes because he had needed something from them too. He knew he wasn't going to get hurt as long as he didn't expect anything more than a bit of fun and release. But first with Zoe and then with Gillian…no, too much work, too much trouble.
Too much pain.
"Real talk, Em?"
Cal surprised himself by how serious and honest his voice was, hoping that Emily could pick up on that. She might not have had specific training, but she was his daughter and could read him in her own way. He gave her a moment, holding the phone tight to his ear and waiting to hear which way she was going to go, for her to understand.
"Of course, Dad," Emily answered, all serious. "Always."
Cal smiled to the dark room, once again imagining her propped up on her dorm bed, legs crossed, all focused on their conversation.
"I'm not ready, love. And I don't know if I'll ever be ready. I don't think I can let myself go like that again." Don't Em, please don't cry! He begged when he heard sniffing loudly. "And this whole dating thing…this isn't fair to the women I go out with."
For most of his life as a father, Cal Lightman had thought he had been sure that he knew what he was doing. He could be stern, he knew he could be overprotective but always in Emily's best interests, he could be silly and always, always showed her how much he loved her. He hated to think, sometimes, that he had had such a bad example for himself that he knew exactly what not to do. He had stopped treating her like a little girl, he had recognised every time she had become mature enough to be told things instead, but Cal couldn't help but thinking that the conversation they were having was not one of his finest moments as a parent. He was her father and things shouldn't go that way; he shouldn't be bearing his soul to her on something like that, pretty much confessing to her that he was too emotionally scarred in the love department to even try to have a shot at it again.
Yet there he was, sitting in his dark bedroom, telling his daughter over the phone that he didn't want to be the kind of man who took advantage of women if given the chance, not anymore.
"You'll be ok, Dad," Emily whispered after a while, her voice breaking a little and Cal felt his own throat tighten. "I love you."
"I love you too, Em. Thanks for looking after me, darling."
Add that to the list of things a good father should never do! He thought, trying to undo the emotional knot tugging at his heart. It should be the other way around, I should be looking after her!
"You don't have to go on another one if you don't want to," she mumbled then, but Cal chuckled.
"A promise is a promise."
"But Dad-"
"Don't worry Em, aside from the fact that I wasn't into any of them it was nice to go out and do something different." Liar liar, pants on fire! "But do promise me something, would you?"
"Of course!" She cheered him on, and this time he laughed.
"After this, the only person I wanna go on a date with is you, ok?"
"Deal!" She laughed too, easing the last strings of tension. "Speaking of which, I should be able to come around early February if I manage to pass my history test next week."
"I'm sure you'll ace it, and I can't wait for you to be here."
"Me too." Then she sighed loudly, and Cal smiled softly into the phone. He wasn't going to lie, the fact that it had been months and yet saying goodbye had not gotten any easier for her did make him feel all warm inside. "Goodnight Dad."
"'Night Em, love ya. Don't stay up too late."
He hung up first, before she could say something about not being a little girl anymore, then put the phone back on the nightstand and got out of bed. He stood by the window, looking outside and finding out that it had started snowing, then pulled the blinds completely open and went back to bed. He laid down and rolled on his side so that he could watch the heavy snowfall, hoping the silent white cascade could lull him back to sleep.