Let's not make a big deal about this, ok?
Besides, I am not sure this is something that you will actualy want.
Anyway, this might look familiar in part to some of you and I guess I have to clarify that this is all CommonFlower's fault... and yes, I chose my words carefully.
Enjoy if you can.
"Well, you got her head screwed on right. More or less."
Gillian let out a brief smile that came out rather bitter, partly because of the tears on her face and partly because, Cal thought, she probably agreed with him and knew that all her good work with Claire had been undone by a resentful lunatic.
"Yeah," she nodded and sighed. "The truth is that's about the best you can hope for."
Cal let the statement sink in, thinking it was uncharacteristic of her to settle for something other than the best possible outcome. It was difficult enough to see her like that, somehow that sense of loss written all over her face was as bad as when he had seen in shock and covered in blood, and he could barely cope with the fact that she had to find weak reassurement in accepting her efforts might not always help as desired.
Then he sighed and moved, scooting closer to her and bringing his arm around her shoulder.
"Come here."
Gillian met him halfway and snuggled up on him, finding comfort in his friend. Curled up on the couch with her legs tucked under her body, Gillian sighed and rested a hand on his leg, letting the silence settle between them and trying to find some kind of solace in it.
"What's your excuse with me then, eh darling?"
Cal's half-joking half-serious statement was meant to ease the sombre weight of the moment, and did manage to get a little huffed smile out of her. Then she patted on his leg and Cal looked down at her, catching her face contracting in a rather unusual expression as she tried to fight back more tears and perhaps bite back another bitter smile she didn't feel was appropriate for the situation. It was a very strange expression, one that Cal couldn't quite identify and, as it always happened when he couldn't read her at all, scared him a little bit.
He was still haunted by the way he had found her at Claire's place, but he had also admired how she had fought back, almost immediately, seeking the confrontation with Mosley and not shying away from it. Anybody with a sprinkle of knowledge in psychology would have understood that it had been a mix of grief, pain and rage powering that reaction, a cocktail of adrenaline perhaps unhealthy but certainly needed. Now that was all gone; with Claire's death vindicated and the man responsible behind bars, now that she knew that she wasn't the only one grieving the loss, all the things that Gillian had put aside in order to be able to function while she was needed were coming back. He didn't like that, to see her like that and even more to wonder exactly how much worse things were underneath the already rough surface: and least of all, he didn't like the things she inadvertently let him see when she was in such a state.
As they sat there in silence, feeling any additional word would be like stepping blindfolded on a minefield, Cal's thoughts started to shift. He wanted to comfort her, to understand what she was going through but he wasn't sure that he could and, more than anything, he wasn't sure she would let him. So instead he chose to focus on the man responsible for all of that, for turning his strong and confident friend in someone who would suddenly question her purpose and abilities; Zack Mosley, little prick thinking he was smarter than anybody else, billionaire dressing like a cheap hobo, sexually frustrated egomaniac with a bad loser temper.
Maybe he couldn't help Gillian the way he wanted and make her pain go away, but perhaps through some transitive property of sorts he could get rid of the dark thoughts haunting him by getting back at the son of a bitch in some way.
A few days went by, and it was hard to tell if things were getting any better.
It was also difficult to tell who needed things to get back to normal the most.
The day after their conversation in her office - the day after his conversation with Emily, to be precise - Cal went back to work determined to keep everything bottled up. The way he felt seeing Gillian struggle, the deep hatred for Mosley and the nearly sadistic satisfaction coursing through him knowing the young man's precious brain was going to turn into mush one pill at the time, and the confusion for having being called out on what he had guarded as a secret by his own daughter. It was a lot to deal with and it wasn't even the beginning of it, and he knew he wasn't even the one having the worst end of it.
As usual, work provided the perfect cope out mechanism, especially when his load was doubled. Gillian took some days off, going off the radar to deal with things in her own way. When she came back to work she seemed mostly ok, as ok as she could be, ready to get back to it and hopefully stop the next Zack Mosley before it was too late. But as professional and efficient as she was, at times her mind seemed to go elsewhere; her eyes would linger on random objects for a while, she would stir the coffee for minutes without drinking it and sometimes would take longer than usual to respond to people addressing her. It pained Cal to see her like that: he wanted to tell her she could talk to him, or to someone else if she thought it might be best, or that she could - should - take more time off if she needed. But he didn't, never, not once, not even as things seemed to be getting worse with time rather than better.
They were all small things that would go unnoticed by most, and it never happened during an interrogation or a meeting, which was why Cal was likely the only one who could see it. He saw more because he was looking for it, and had the questionable advantage to know her better. He would go to her office to talk shop or ask if she wanted to grab a bite, and would find her looking outside the window as if there was a blank horizon staring back at her.
That was how he found her that day too, a late Thursday afternoon just a couple of weeks after their last proper chat. Cal stood by the door of her office looking through the glass, seeing her silhouette in the room lit only by the computer screen and the lights coming from outside. It wasn't exactly dark but far from bright either, and she nearly blended in with the maroon dress she was wearing. Another thing Cal had noticed and didn't like, the disappearance of colours from her attires, but in that particular moment that was the least of his concern. She looked particularly out of it that day, completely lost in whatever she could see in the skyline of the city outside of her window, and something inside him told Cal he should just leave and let her snap out of it on her own.
But he couldn't afford to wait, not that day of all days, so he knocked loud enough for her to hear and patiently waited for Gillian to be brought back to reality by the sound. The way the gentle knock startled her didn't sit well with Cal, and neither did the seemingly blank expression she gave him when she turned around.
It was brief, passing like most of the unnatural reactions he had been catching on her, then Gillian forced a more present expression on her face before nodding him to come in.
"Hei," she greeted him as he stepped in.
"Busy?" Cal asked, opting to gliss over the fact that he had caught her doing absolutely nothing.
"Just finishing up the report on the Parker case," Gillian shrugged with a quick glance at the screen. "I'm stuck on the conclusion, to be honest."
"No wonder," he huffed while putting his hands in his pockets. "The fact that she was a pathological liar did throw a wrench in the whole thing."
"Well," Gillian sighed and stood up, immediately looking like she had no idea why she had done so. "We did manage to find the truth under all those lies in the end, at least the family of the victim will have some justice."
"Yeah," he whispered in a low voice, absently looking around the room as he kept muttering away. "That's about the best we can hope for sometimes."
That sentence, seemingly thrown away, elicited the biggest reaction he had seen on Gillian in the past week. She had been moving stuff around her desk with the intention of presenting herself as busy, but after his casual delivery she froze and looked up at him, immediately trying to find the real meaning behind him using her very own words. It was impossible to tell, Cal's face was an empty mask and for the following silent minutes they found themselves engaged in a staring contest they knew would lead absolutely nowhere without words.
They came eventually, the words, however not the kind that could actually move things along.
"Did you need something?" Gillian asked then, and Cal had to give to her for the way she managed to sound naturally normal.
"Yeah, something came up last minute and I will need to take tomorrow off, make it a long weekend," Cal explained, quickly biting his lip at the way she seemed to be rather uninterested in his news. "Emily's visit to Stanford moved up to this weekend and if she misses out on it there's no telling when she'll get another one."
"Oh, of course," Gillian babbled, surprised and perhaps a little ashamed she had been thinking he was asking for time off for something silly. Then she scrambled, trying to recover in some way. "She's really dead set on California?"
"Berkley, Stanford, Chapman, UCs…you name it!" He groaned painfully. "She seems to be hell bent to get as far away as possible."
"Would it make you feel any better to know that's what most kids going to college want?"
"Not really," he moaned. "But I figure I might have more chances to have her listen to me if I don't openly fight against it."
It was meant to be a bit of a joke, one of the many he usually delivered when it came to his daughter and Gillian would normally go along with it in her way. In that case, Cal wouldn't have been surprised if she had noted that he was basically manipulating Emily with reverse psychology: instead, Gillian quickly averted her eyes and looked away for a moment before looking back at him with a little smirk.
"You should look at the bright side," she noted, then shrugged as he opened up his arms to ask what she meant. "She hasn't realised she could go to college in another country altogether."
"Bloody hell, Foster! Now I've got a whole other nightmater to worry about!" Gillian chuckled softly for a moment, then sat back down as he went on. "Anyway, I cleared my schedule for tomorrow so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Of course, don't worry about it."
"But if you need me for something-"
"Don't take it the wrong way Cal, but we can carry on one day without you."
"None taken," he mumbled, then took a long breath in and looked at her with a sudden very serious expression. "You sure you're gonna be ok?"
Gillian managed to sustain his gaze, one that was surprisingly not as intense as probing as she could have expected. It didn't make it any easier, and it was clear that despite everything Cal wasn't only talking about the workload; but after what felt like a long silence she gave him a wide smile and a fierce nod, making sure her face and body communicated her feelings as well as her words.
"Don't worry Cal, we'll be fine." Then she turned around to her computer and went back to the unfinished report. "Have a good time with Emily."
Cal took a couple of moments to watch her, staring at the back of her head with the clicking of her fingers on the keyboard the only noise in the room, then he mumbled something along the lines of 'I'll tell her you said that' and left the room.
I know it's probably not much to ellicit comments and review, but those of you who read me before know I like to know what you think about each chapter. And if you are new...well, don't be shy! I take everything: praises, yelling, criticism, suggestions, questions, theories...just throw it at me!
Oh, and in case someone is wondering, this is not the only thing I have been working on since Playlist...