Here we are, back on schedule.

Guest: you're about to find out...

It was late, but nobody seemed to mind.

Maybe because it was a Sunday and the weekend staff wasn't paid enough to mind, or maybe because the nurses had gotten so used to seeing her around there, and the positive effect it usually had on an otherwise grumpy patient. Whatever the case, the few people she ran into simply smiled and nodded at Gillian as she made her way to Cal's room, keeping her steps as light as she could because the sound of her own heels on the floor scared her.

She stopped just before the door, peeking her head in as she had been doing every time: usually she did to check if Emily was there and wanted to give her privacy with her father, but that evening she did it to find out what she was about to walk into.

Emily had driven herself home after their chat, somewhat calmer and reassured, leaving Gillian alone. She had gone back to her office with the intention to finish what she had started, but the interaction with the girl had quashed her plans. Instead she had sat in the messy room, mulling things over until she had found the courage to be honest with herself. Having the guts to actually go through with it was a whole different story, and when she took a glance in the room and saw that Cal was asleep on the chair by the window she almost took it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be, that she should have just gone home and forget about it.

Then she remembered Emily's face when she had gone on a tangent, considering the internal debate she might have gone through having to balance her concern for Cal with the cold reality of the faith of their company. If only things had been that simple! But no matter what, there was indeed an internal turmoil and there was no good in postponing it.

She stepped inside the room, glancing at Cal as she considered whether to take off her coat at all. He was sprawled out on one of the padded chairs around the small table, his hands still absently lingering on the keyboard of his laptop, his chin down to his chest which was raising and falling at the gentle pace of his breathing. Gillian couldn't help but smile, it was something to catch Cal Lightman with his guards down, even if she knew he was in that condition because he had worked himself too much during the day. She knew he had had a double PT session, he had requested it because he felt that he was still too weak on his left side, which meant he had likely exhausted himself and then pretended nothing of the sort while Emily was around. Then, clearly, to top it all off he had spent a good amount of time working and tiring his eye, so she wasn't surprised that he had crashed like that.

Gillian debated whether to leave him like that and let the nurse find out in the next round, but then she considered he might have been like that for a while already and spending hours in that uncomfortable position could not be good for his already sore body. Eventually she stepped closer, taking hold of the laptop and slowly pulling it away from his sleepy hold. The light movement immediately woke him up, his hands jerked forward trying to recapture contact with the object and Gillian stopped, reading with a reassuring smile when he looked up at her and regained focus.

"Sorry," she apologised, reading in his eyes that the sudden wake-up had scared the hell out of him. "How long have you been out?"

Cal grumbled something and straddled his face with both hands as if to wash off the last of the sleepy mask on it, then shrugged and looked around a room that had gotten boringly familiar.

"I'm not sure."

"Did you eat?" He nodded yes at Gillian's question, then sat up straight smirking at the uncomfortable sensation in his lower back. "You have a fully adjustable bed right here, why would you do that to yourself?"

"I needed a change of perspective," he mumbled, taking the glass of water that she was offering. "I'm going crazy locked up in here. I'm fine now, why can't they just send me home and I can come to do therapy?"

"I don't know Cal," she muttered away while absently arranging the pillows on the bed, not looking at him. "Maybe because you had a brain tumour and nearly died? Because you kept it from the people who were supposed to be your support system for recovery?"

Cal stared up at her, baffled, needing confirmation that she had indeed just spat out those things to him. Not because he was surprised that she had, but because he had expected the outburst to come sooner. He was sure Emily had been hitching to have a go at him but he was confident she would eventually focus on the fact that he was alive and well, and Zoe was probably just too relieved that she hadn't had to make the decision he had bestowed upon her. But Gillian was a different thing, which was part of the reason why he had left instructions not to call her in case things went south, and it was nothing short of remarkable that she had waited that long to tell it like it was.

"I know," he sighed, looking at her even though she wasn't returning the gesture. "I'm sorry, love."

Gillian scoffed audibly and rolled her eyes, but then stopped and tried to compose herself. After all, she hadn't come there to fight with him, and she could tell by the look on his face and the way he sort of shrunk on the seat that he truly was sorry. She didn't doubt that he was, being sorry about some of the stunts he pulled after he had done so had never really been the problem. Besides, perhaps the fear of possibly losing part of his sight, and part of his own nature along with it, had been a severe enough punishment already.

But she wasn't going to apologise for her own outburst, she too knew it was long overdue, and instead walked over to the table and took the laptop away before he could switch it back on.

"You should rest," she admonished him in response to his pouting look.

"I'm fine," he mumbled absently, not trying to be confrontational but somewhat distracted by her behaviour. "It's kind of late for visits, isn't it?"

Gillian was plugging the laptop to the charger and stopped for a second, throwing him a glance Cal wouldn't have probably been able to read no matter what.

"I knew you were going to have a busy day, so I went to the office to catch up on some work. It's easier when there is nobody around." Cal nodded slowly, knowing as well as she did that she was overexplaining. "Don't worry, everything is fine."

Cal didn't doubt that. Of course he wasn't naive, he knew his prolonged absence and the temporary uncertainty about his conditions had been a big problem for the business. Since he had regained access to his phone and emails he had seen first hand what impact it had had on the company and, by extension, on Gillian. It was more than reasonable to think that, no matter hers and everybody else's efforts to compensate for his absence, things were still piling up, and that dedicating a day to the backlog was a good idea. He was confident Gillian had things under control, a task probably made easier by his ongoing recovery, but she clearly didn't feel like talking shop at that moment.

That was easy enough to understand, what with the dismissive tone of her voice and all, but Cal couldn't help to notice something else was on her mind. It wouldn't have been clear to anybody else, but Cal knew what to look for and he knew her. He sat there and watched her moving about his hospital room, throwing out the remains of his dinner as if she was some kind of maid, and noticed how frantically controlled her gestures were: they were random, useless, but she was paying great attention in going on about it slowly and methodically, as if they truly meant something. Then he noticed that she gave no sign of wanting to sit down despite the many options available in the room, that she was yet to remove her coat even though it was boiling in there and that she was suddenly avoiding direct eye contact. He wasn't surprised; he might have not known about Emily's visit to Gillian but his daughter had not been the only one noticing that his business partner's visit had thinned over the past couple of days.

Cal nodded to himself at the thought, unseen by Gillian who was now fishing in her purse for something, then he slowly pushed himself up from the chair trying to balance his weak side. He noticed the immediate alarm mixed with curiosity on her face as Gillian caught his move, she was yet to see him on his feet since after the surgery, but he waved it off and grabbed hold of the chair's backrest for support and steadied himself. It was still uncomfortable to stand for long spells on his own, but he had been napping and sitting for at least a couple of hours and could use a bit of movement.

And if the time had come, he didn't want to face it with his ass on a comfy cushion.

"Is there anything I have to sign in there?" He asked then, nodding at the bag still in her hands.

"No, don't worry about it. I got really good at forging your signature."

Cal smirked, honestly impressed by the quick quip. Then he took a few steps, careful as he had been taught in therapy, covering the short distance to the bed and sitting on the edge of it, watching with a silent face as Gillian stepped back to put a gap between them.

"Anything of note I should know about?"

"Everything is under control now, Cal." Gillian sighed. "The only thing you have to worry about is your recovery. Business is fine, matter of fact we just signed a big new contract today with-"

"Uhm," Cal cut her off gently, absently massaging the back of his neck with one hand as he looked in her general direction. "Work, I see." Gillian was having trouble returning his gaze but he still saw the way she swallowed nervously, so he decided it was about time he put her out of her misery. "Is that why you're here, now?"

For all the fears and despair about it… Oh, his eye was healing just fine! Gillian knew she had been doing a horrible job at masking her nervous state, she knew she might have slipped at least once or twice with her words and voice, and for a moment she wondered if she hadn't done it on purpose. The conversation with Emily at the office had been difficult enough, and she knew round two with the girl's father was going to be even harder; but she had come to a point where it was either face the music or being emotionally deafened by it.

But first, there was one thing she had to know.

Gillian took in a long breath and composed herself, folding her arms to her chest and leaning on the wall while she finally managed to look at Cal. Unlike her, he was ready for the visual contact and sat there on the edge of the bed with his legs hanging on the side, leaning back supported by his arms stretched to the mattress behind him.

"Why didn't you tell me anything?" It was a simple question, powered by a very mild curiosity rather than some kind of accusation. "Why did you tell them not to contact me in case things went wrong?"

Cal held her gaze for what felt like eternity, just eyes on eyes with one of those charged intentions his looks often had. He wasn't reading her, he wasn't confronting her, he wasn't trying to challenge her or to get a raise out of her: he was just postponing his response knowing it would have been the beginning of the end.

"You were leaving," he said then, seeing the gasp Gillian desperately held back. He had expected that, he had figured it out long ago and perhaps she knew it too, in some way. Then, to the surprise of both of them, he pulled up straight and shrugged absently, never averting his eyes. "You still are."

This wasn't a question; it wasn't an accusation either, but this time there was enough power and intensity in his eyes to ground Gillian to the spot and make her realise that that moment - the moment - had been in the making far longer than what she had thought.

"Yes." She heard herself saying, and as bitter as it tasted in her mouth the aftertaste of liberation was far too sweet to be ignored. "I am."

Time stopped in that hospital room for a few minutes, the space between and around them wrapped in a thick blanket of silence. It was out, the truth they had both known for some time now. Of all the ways Gillian had imagined saying that, the present one had been nowhere near her list, not even when she had decided to go see him that night. As for Cal…until that night Gillian hadn't really considered the possibility that he already knew, that he might have guessed, especially after learning that he had been elsewhere preoccupied, but the more their interaction had infolded the more she had seen the news wasn't going to hit him as out of the blue as she had previously thought.

Then, as to confirm all of that, Cal nodded slowly before scooting over in the bed and laying down. Gillian watched him, bracing herself with her own arms, wondering if that was really it was all going to end as she watched him pick up from the nightstand the war novel Emily had brought him from home and find the marked page where he had left off.

Just before writing an ending of his own to their story.

"Then what are you still doing here?"

What's your excuse with me then?

Her first, instinctive reaction had been to smile, somewhat amused by the thought.

Then something else had pushed that aside for a brief moment, and she had wondered how he could make even that moment about himself in some way. She had dismissed the second thought easily enough, going back to enjoying the comfort of his embrace and how he had understood her pain about Claire. But it had come back a few hours later, once she had gone back home to be alone with herself and her own thoughts and considerations.

What's your excuse with me then… Wasn't that an interesting question?

They were friends, sure, they had relied on each other countless times; they were business partners but before that they had been through a lot together; they were both skilled professionals and they respected each other…well, she respected him, but it wasn't always as mutual as she would have hoped - and deserved - was it?

Thoughts like that started to pile up in her head, especially after a couple of glasses of wine in the comfy darkness of her living room. They found good company that night and in the following days, somewhat helped by the fact that Cal seemed to be happy to leave her to deal with her grief the best way she saw fit for herself. She'd rather have that, space and time, than his constant hovering presence and she was grateful for it, no question about it. But left to her own mental device, the hits had kept coming.

What's your excuse with me then?

It really was quite the question, especially after the past months. After his lack of respect for the commitment assumed with the publisher, or the complete disregard for the company's finance - again. The list was long and, Gillian realised, up to a point it was getting difficult to ignore.

What's your excuse with me then?

That they were friends? That they had met at a very particular time when they both needed help? Cal's life and family was on the line, and frankly having been forced to lie to a patient - not for the first time - in the name of ill-placed bureaucracy she had been in need of a change of career. That had been enough for them to connect, and then grow that connection into what they had now. But what did they really have? A 50/50 business partnership she needed to remind people of all the time? A company with his name in the front and hers in the background? A relationship in which she was expected to go along with his shenanigans, always put up a good face and get ready to roll up her sleeves to fix whatever he messed up?

What's your excuse with me then?

That he loved him? Maybe, she did love him after all. But was that enough? The parallel coming to her mind might have been a bit too strong, but wasn't that exactly the kind of issue that, as a psychologist, she had found herself addressing with victims of abuse more than once? No, it couldn't be. Cal wasn't abusing her; he was there for her when she needed, he would put himself in danger - oh, the irony - to protect her, he would confide in her things he wouldn't share with anybody else and would come to her often when he truly needed help and was faced with his own limits.

But…the schemes behind her back, even in cases when they worked together, the occasional lack of respect for her role in the company, the risk-taking moves that would always shake her to her core, the questionable choices of intimate company so blatantly in her face, the secret keeping…

How much more of that could she really take? How much did those things weigh on the emotional scale of her life compared to the good moments?

What's your excuse with them then?

It was indeed a very poignant question, and in the days following their conversation Gilian surprised herself asking it more and more. It kept her mind busy, perhaps even when it shouldn't have, slowing her down at work especially when the self-assessment became so frequent and deep to make her question what was the point of all that, going to work every day only waiting for the next thing to come.

The thoughts then started to take a new form, shaping into something more akin to a 'what if?'. What if things didn't change, what if he was never going to change?

What if the change was up to her?

The more she had tried to push back those thoughts, the more they came back knocking even louder, and before she had realised it was happening she had made a decision.

It was up to her.

Once she had realised that, the next steps had been surprisingly easy. Not because she didn't care about him, but because she realised she had to care about herself first and foremost. She had started to look around, thinking if there was a sign for her out there that she should backtrack she would have spotted it; but everywhere she looked there was only a way forward, no going back.

You were leaving

Yes. Things had been in motion already when Zoe had called her looking for Cal, so much underway that the call had caught her sorting through some of the stuff she was packing away.

You still are

Yes, again. They had been put on hold with everything that was going on, for obvious reasons, but as he got better the gears had started running again and Emily had nearly stumbled on her clearing out some of her office on that Sunday afternoon.

Now, before you get out the torches and pitchforks remember all your insightful comments about Gillian needing to look after herself...