Here's another combo we never got in the show: Cal, Gillian, Ben and Shazza.
11
"I want to say it's nice to see you Ben, but I can't say that's entirely true," Gillian confessed painfully, still managing to smile sincerely at the long lost friend before reaching forward for a hug.
"Careful love," Cal gently warned her as she nearly stepped on the envelope and she nodded.
"Come in Ben." The agent complied, paying attention not to step over the object on the ground and returning the hug she offered again. "It's good to see you, despite everything."
"So you're just going to assume the reason why I'm here without even asking?"
Cal grunted something in amusement while pouring two cups of freshly brewed coffee, handling one to Gillian and the other over to the agent.
"After what, two years without even a phone call?" Cal scoffed. "Believe you me mate, I'd pay good money if you were here for something else entirely."
Reynolds sipped his coffee and avoided a rebuttal, studying the pair with eyes that were scanning their faces for something familiar. They were still Lightman and Foster as he remembered them, always in sync even when they weren't - more so than ever from what he had heard - but there was something certainly off in the atmosphere surrounding the trio. Gillian was studying him too, finding the way in her memory to how he used to be when he was working with them, remembering his straightforwardness and no-nonsense approach to pretty much everything and decided to take the lead, mindful of the fact that there was probably going to be some slugs between the two men considering how they friendship had been interrupted.
"Why don't you tell us what you know, Ben?" She encouraged him then. "I don't think any of us has the patience to beat around the bush."
Reynold couldn't hold back a small smile as he felt the familiarity of dealing with them coming back to him, then sighed and sat at the kitchen table, ready to speak.
"Not much to be honest, not yet. I know Burns came back to town, and that he's been giving you some grief."
"That's one way to put it!" Cal mumbled, and Gillian tried to softly silence him with his tea.
"That's from him?" The agent went on, knowing better than to feed into Lightman's behaviour when he was like that and pointing at the envelope. "You are sure about that?" He asked again after they nodded, and Gillian simply went to pick up the laptop and put it in front of him.
"We put the cameras out a little more than a week ago, after we found flowers left on the porch one morning," Gillian explained as the agent checked the recordings. "Without these we weren't able to prove he violated the protective order-"
"You got a P.O?" They didn't answer to his surprise, just looked at him until he sighed and shook his head. "Ok, let's take it from the top."
Going down memory lane of the events of the past month or so was not something they had thought about when waking up that morning, but it seemed inevitable. Gillian started from the beginning then, from that day that now seemed so far away back in time, when Burns had shown up all shy and subdued looking only to talk, and how she had eventually agreed to meet him. Inevitably, Reynolds' eyes went to Cal while she explained that passage and so did hers, and they both saw the same thing: a wounded man who was never going to forgive himself about trying to be a decent human being. The agent filed away that piece of visual information and understood it was a sore spot that didn't need to be touched, then gave his attention back to Gillian as she went on with more of the story. When she got to the point of Burns showing up there drunk and belligerent and how he had been dealt with, Reynolds couldn't resist shooting an approving look at Cal for the impressive manoeuvre, but then Gillian told him that they had decided not to call the police on the night visitor and he nearly choked on his coffee.
"I don't get it, why didn't you call the police? I'm not entirely sure it would have been a big felony but it could have done something."
This time he didn't stop himself from asking and immediately wished he hadn't, because the weird looks between Cal and Gillian started off again. At first he thought it was mutual regret, that they had both decided to hold back, but this time Cal seemed even more beaten down and he kept his head down in something that looked a lot like shame when Gillian gently squeezed his hand on the table.
"We were hoping that was it, that-"
"No need to bail me out on this one, Gill," Cal huffed as he squeezed her hand in return before taking hers back, then looked at Reynolds. "I told her I pitied the bastard and that there was no need to go that far."
"Cal-"
"He's here to help love, no need to hold back," he cut her off gently, forcing a smile to her before going back to the agent. "We did hope the hangover would clear things up but the morning after he was back at the office, going from a half-assed apology to right back at it rather quickly. We told him to leave and we kept an eye out for him, nothing happened for a couple of days until he tried to get me arrested for assault and B ."
"Wow!" Reynolds pulled back on the chair, kind of shocked after Gillian quickly went through what had happened at the police station. "I'd never have guessed, someone like him."
"Me neither, that's why I struggled with the idea of the protective order but," Gillian waved at the envelope on the floor, "here we are."
Cal picked it up from there, filling Reynolds in on the last details of how they had gotten to that morning with Gillian at his side, and once it was over they all let things settle in silence for a while. Eventually, the silence started to feel a little too heavy and they felt all stuck, not knowing how to move forward and for a moment almost forgetting about the mysterious envelope.
Gillian was the first one snapping out of it, suddenly tilting her head on one side and staring at Reynolds with a curious expression.
"How did you know, Ben?" She asked then, switching to inquisitorial mode so quickly that even Cal was taken aback. "That Burns was here, and all that's going on?"
Cal stared at her for a moment, curious about her curiosity and immediately intrigued by that little teasing pitch in her voice, then he slowly turned to look at Reynolds who suddenly looked a touch uncomfortable. On his side, the FBI agent felt like he had been thrown into a time warp, more like an industrial tumble dryer running at full speed actually, as the feeling of being questioned by not one but two deception experts started to suffocate him. Then he made the mistake of bringing his arms to his chest, immediately knowing he might as well just tell them he was hiding something, but before he could even try to put together a sentence Cal raised his hand to stop him.
"How about we have some breakfast for now?" He suggested. "Might as well wait for Wallowski to get here instead of going through whatever it is that you have to share twice."
Reynolds welcomed the temporary bail out with a dignified nod and watched the pair break ranks to get on with breakfast. He couldn't know it of course, but the second attempt at the first meal of the day was going a lot better than the one interrupted by his arrival; the elephant in the room was no longer the envelope, and most importantly they were in a very different kind of waiting game now. They could live with postponing Reynolds' revelation now that they knew there was another ally for them…and frankly they found the prospect of the FBI agent meeting the D.C detective rather entertaining.
Roughly 15 minutes later there was another knock on the door and Cal went to let the detective in, repeating the warning to watch her step with the flat tone of someone who was nearly done with it all.
"Detective Wallowski, Special Agent Reynolds," he quickly introduced the two, then smirked at the sight of the oddly filled kitchen. "Now, isn't this a party!"
Gillian gently put a hand on his back, knowing his irony was masking a deep sense of discomfort, then she thought best to expand on the introductions a little.
"Ben used to work with us at the group, he was our liaison when we had a contract with the FBI," she explained as the two LEOs shook hands briefly. "And he has something to contribute to our little story here, don't you Ben?"
The agent smirked and sighed, then sat at the table again and got to his part of the story.
"About a month ago I joined a multi-agency task force, focused on sharing intelligence on officers and agents with problematic records. The idea is to be able to identify them and isolate them within the boundaries of their specific agencies."
"A government naughty list?" Cal grumbled. "Well that's comforting!"
They all ignored his sarcastic outburst, knowing it was the best option if they wanted to move on in a productive way, and Cal smirked annoyed at all of them but decided to let things unfold.
"It's still a rough process, and I wasn't there for the first weeks when it was mostly data collection and trying to establish some protocols," Reynolds went on unperturbed, his long established ability to filter Lightman's misbehaviour kicking in on autopilot. "Last week I was going through the database to get familiar with it and Burns's name popped up. That was surprising enough, but before I could check further I saw there was a note about a protective order taken out against him."
He stopped there, shrugging and mostly to send an apologetic look towards Cal and Gillian for the way he had pretended to be surprised by that part of the story. Thankfully for him, they had bigger fish to fry and a passing failure to detect his little lie was not something they wanted to concern themselves with.
"I guess this is the part where you tell us why he's on that database to begin with," Cal pointed out then.
"Yes and no," Reynolds sighed. "Most of the informations available on file are redacted-"
"What's the point of this task force if you don't have access to all the information?" Wallowski jumped in, visibly annoyed.
"It's different for Burns because of his extensive undercover work. It's pretty much all that he has done, most of the time with other agents so there are a lot of things in his file that are kept confidential," Reynolds tried to explain, although sharing the feeling of frustration going around the room. "From what I gathered there were a couple of situations in his recent assignments that didn't work out well, and he didn't hold himself to the expected standards for someone with his experience."
There was a silent break after he stopped talking, which Cal and Gillian used to study him further and try to read beyond his words. Because there was more, of course: he had gotten past them once and it was understandable with all that was going on, but they could sense they were getting down to the wire and they were on high alert for the bomb to drop.
With a little push of their own.
"This is what brought you here," Gillian clarified for the group, her voice calm but deadly serious. "But there's something else bugging you."
Reynolds nodded, for a moment wondering if it would be appropriate for him to ask for a little alcoholic reinforcement for his third serving of coffee.
"He told you he quit the DEA," the agent started off, subconsciously stopping to give Cal the time to stand behind her and making her feel the safety of his proximity. "But that's not what happened. I don't know what went wrong in those last assignments but whatever it was he was requested to undergo a mandatory psychological evaluation before being involved in anything else. He stalled at first and they pulled him from the field. It was supposed to be a temporary solution but he kept failing to get assessed and eventually they let him go."
"Let me get this straight," Cal jumped in, his voice tense. "The DEA has a mentally troubled agent, so much so that they don't trust him on the field despite years of experience…and they set him loose back into society without any kind of assessment because he doesn't want to get help?"
This time nobody had any objection to Cal's disgruntled tone; on the contrary, they all felt pretty much the same, especially Gillian who had seen more similar situations than she'd care to remember during her time at the Pentagon. And being the one with more hands-on experience, it was a surprise to no one that she was the one breaking the slightly awkward silence with something somewhat productive.
"That might explain a lot," she said eventually. "The way he's been behaving, everything about him has been so out of character, and I'm not just talking about his inability to let go." She briefly glanced at Cal who gave her a small nod in return, not because he knew what she had on her mind but because he trusted she knew what she was doing. "When we first met him in that case we had no idea that he was working for the DEA, after all many undercover agents are extremely good liars for obvious reasons. It was only later that some small red flags started to come up. And we've seen him under extreme pressure when he was exposed, and he was still very much in control. He was under threat and being tortured but he was always lucid and practical…No matter how distraught he might be he's still a rational man, and he should have been able to understand that the protective order was his sign to stop. And he knows how these things work, he must have known we'd step up our protection if he didn't stop, but see?" She turned the laptop toward them and pointed at Burns' image, his uncovered face clearly in the frame along with his glove-free hands. "He wasn't even trying to hide his face, and he's clearly not thinking about leaving his prints which means that he's not thinking about the consequences of his actions."
Cal agreed wholeheartedly, but also thought it meant that he was likely too far gone to care about any repercussion at that point. It was reasonable to think that Burns had not taken into consideration that they might have had cameras at any point, but Gillian was right and his professional experience should have at least put the idea in his head after the first violation of the protective order.
"I think you're right love, there is certainly something else going on here that we don't know," Cal voiced out his agreement. "I'm guessing the answer is in whatever redacted information Reynolds stumbled on in that database of his. Do you think there's a chance to dig up something from there?"
The last part of the question was for the FBI agent, who huffed nervously as he was called on the spot.
"I can try, but don't get your hopes up."
"Fair enough," Cal nodded, then looked over at the envelope. "I think it's time we take a look now."
Everyone in the room agreed, then Detective Wallowski found three sets of eyes on her and got the hint. She fished in her pockets taking out her phone first, snapping a couple of pictures of the object like Cal had done, before switching the camera to video recording and giving it to Reynold so that he could help document the recovery of the evidence, then she snapped on a pair of lattice gloves and picked up the envelope. There was a deep and heavy silence as she walked towards the table, quite remarkable considering that there were four people in the room. Then, knowing that they all just wanted to be done with it, she went for it and opened the envelope. She held it up with her left hand and used the right one to take out the content, which to the others looked like simple pieces of paper. Reynolds was a little closer and was pointing the phone directly at it so he had a better vantage point, but Gillian and Cal were on the opposite side of the table seeing only the back of the documents and the only thing they had to go by was the cop's reaction.
Which wasn't great, unsurprisingly, but also not that bad. The woman's eyes showed clear surprise but were fairly neutral, at least for the first piece in her hand, although her movement slowed down significantly when she looked at the second item. Cal knew he was holding his breath and didn't like it, much like he didn't like feeling like he wanted to yell at her to spill the guts while also being terrified of any response, but he found a way to quiet both feelings when looking for Gillian's hand and she immediately gripped his in return.
"These are pictures," Wallowski finally announced, opting not to look at them as she did so. "He's been following you."
The news wasn't exactly unexpected, but it still wasn't pleasant when she flipped the first two images she had taken out of the envelope and put them face up on the table. Gillian and Cal inched closer to take a look, recognising themselves in the still images clearly taken with grade A equipment and from a distance that would leave the photographer undetected. The first was of them getting coffee in the plaza outside the office, the second had been snapped sometime after one of their meetings from the week before, framing them and Torres coming out of a client's building. Their joined hands squeezed tighter when Wallowski flipped another one, this one showing them getting out of Cal's car somewhere they couldn't recognise but clearly during a case, with the following one being very similar except Loker was with them too. As disturbing as it was, Cal couldn't help but to find a little element of solace in those images: in none of them Gillian was alone. Being followed and spied on was never a good thing, but it would have been a lot more difficult for him to digest if he had to come to terms with the fact that every one of those images correspond with a time Burns could have tried to do something more than just taking pictures if given the chance.
A couple of more generic pictures of them being out and about for work piled up on the others, then one came that made their hands sweat a little, showing them leaving Cal's house all dressed to the nines the night before. In the picture they were smiling, oddly cuddling as they walked to his car, but it was hard to look at that image and remember how happy and free they had felt at that moment. The following picture was of them arriving at the jazz club, and much to Cal's partial relief there seemed to be nothing taken inside because the one after that was of them leaving the venue. He was expecting the next picture to be of them getting back home, but when it took a little longer to come he looked up from the spread of images on the table and stared at Wallowski, who seemed to have frozen half-way through the motion of taking out the next picture.
There was still surprise on her face, but also a touch of fear and, worst of all for Cal and Gillian, something that they couldn't identify. Between the two of them they could recognise pretty much every human expression under the sun, but the way the cop looked at them as her hands seemed to be suddenly shaking a little was something they couldn't place, not until the woman managed to avert her eyes from a clearly troubling image to look up at them.
"What is it?"
Cal asked first, beating Gillian to it mostly because she was too distracted looking at Reynolds. The FBI agent was in a prime position to see for himself and him too looked suddenly out of phase with that image; the main difference was that Gillian knew him better and was more familiar with his character and therefore more efficient in understanding his expression, which painfully explained why he quickly averted his eyes in shame from the picture and could not bring himself to look at her.
Standing next to her, Cal felt her body temperature skyrocket through their joint hands and immediately looked at her, finding her features hardened and her eyes veiled with a thin barrier of determination to hold back tears that he had come to know too well through the years. Then he looked at Reynolds too, seeing the shame on his face and understanding it wasn't directed at himself, and as a possible guess about the still mysterious image started to form in his mind a strong sense of nausea also started to grow in the back of his throat.
"It's clear he went against the protective order, I can-"
Wallowski's attempt to move past that moment was courteous but also naive, and Gillian clearly wasn't going to force into her any more awkwardness nor to shy away from facing the situation. She didn't interrupt the detective, not with her words at least, but she did leave Cal's side and walked closer, picking up a napkin from the table not to leave any prints on the picture before stretching her hand forward in a clear indication that she wanted to see for herself. Silently panicking, the cop quickly looked for input from Reynolds who shook his head as to say she shouldn't comply, then at Cal who, against his own best judgement, found himself giving her a little nod. In an ideal world he would have tried to stop her, but he knew that Gillian wasn't going to be denied no matter how painful the revelation might have been.
Eventually, Wallowski gave in and passed the picture to Foster, who took it and stared at it for a solid five straight minutes without saying a word. Then, still silent, she nodded at the cop to pass the following images and studied three of them with deep concentration for a while. Cal was yet to see any of them but he cared far more about her reaction to it, his heart pounding furiously and faster every time her muscle tensed up and her face hardened trying to hide her emotions. There was so much he wanted to do and say; he wanted to kick everyone out and hold her, he wanted to rip those pictures out of her hands and rip them apart, he wanted to hug her and lift her up and physically remove her from that moment in space and time but he knew that nothing, absolutely nothing, could get rid of the ugly truth she was facing.
Then, because she was still Dr Gillian Foster after all, she quietly put the pictures face down on the table and gave the envelope back to the detective.
"We have him on camera this time, and I think it's fair to say you'll find his prints on this," she casually said then. "Would this be enough to prove he violated the protective order?"
They all knew what she was doing, exhibiting not so much denial but simply sheer desire to move past the moment, and as unhealthy as they thought it was they could also see how it might be completely understandable, and none of them felt like calling her out on it.
"Yes, more than enough." Wallowski nodded. "I'll take these in to file them as evidence, and I'm going to need the video from your cameras."
"Of course, we'll send it to you. Would you need anything else?"
Cal knew she was strong, and that she would most likely always do her best to keep things polite, but the way Gillian casually spoke with the cop at that moment seriously made him feel like she was one word away from cheerfully asking everyone if they wanted some more coffee before leaving. Thankfully she didn't, Cal honestly thought he might have lost it if she had, and instead once the next steps with the cop were agreed she excused herself saying that she was going to get changed and went upstairs.
Cal hated to admit it, but her departure eased the tension a little bit and, most importantly, gave him the opportunity to do something he'd never dared to do in her presence. Reynolds had long stopped the recording and Wallowski had already started to gather up the pictures when Cal grabbed her wrist and stopped her. She looked up and shook her head, begging him not to do that to himself as he stared at the pictures, still flipped face down almost daring himself, but eventually she gave up the same way she had done with Gillian and gave him another pair of gloves. Even before looking, Cal had a fair understanding of what he was about to see but it was still a punch to the stomach when he found himself looking at the first image that had caused troubles in the atmosphere. He immediately recognised the angle it had been taken from outside the big living room window behind the couch….the perfect vantage point to capture the moment Gillian had climbed on top of him the night before. That one wasn't so bad, but Cal immediately understood why Gillian had lingered on it for so long: it wasn't about that one, it was about the fact that it was easy to imagine what would come next. In the second one the dress was gone and the back of his head only partially covered her figures, which was even more visible in the third image capturing the moment when she had really started to get into it and lose herself in the act. He didn't make it any further, he was always mesmerised by the way she let herself go when they made love and he didn't want the beautiful image of freedom and power to be tainted by someone's attempt to turn something he held precious into something he should feel bad about.
Somehow, maybe in an attempt to pay tribute to Gillian's unbelievable strength, Cal stopped himself short of tossing everything on the ground and stoically stepped back allowing the detective to pack up the pictures, somehow 'forgetting' the latest ones on the kitchen counter. She then left without saying anything else, just briefly shaking hands with Reynolds on her way out while Cal quickly grabbed the pictures and shoved them in a drawer, fighting the desire to shred them to pieces and knowing it wasn't his decision to make, glad he at least had the option. Then he paced straight to the cabinet where he kept the good booze and quickly poured himself a generous glass of scotch, regardless of the fact that it was barely 9 o'clock in the morning.
He took himself and his drink to the living room, maybe thinking he had to put some more distance between himself and the pictures only to realise that he was now staring at the couch, making things a lot worse. He could hear the water running in the shower upstairs and thought Gillian had the right idea because he felt dirty too, no matter how determined he was not to let Burns get to him, then he caught sight of Reynolds coming into the room and realised that he didn't quite know what to do.
"Is she," the FBI agent mumbled, pointing upstairs, "is she ok?"
"Always, " Cal smirked. "And never, as usual."
Reynolds nodded thoughtfully, knowing what he meant: Gillian Foster was not one to show many weaknesses, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel things deeply.
"Has she…let go, so far? I mean, I get why you guys wouldn't want to but-"
"I told her a little freak out would not be the end of the world, might do her some good,...Well, not in so many words."
"And has she?"
Cal shrugged, unable to answer properly and frankly too busy having a little meltdown of his own, going nuts trying to grasp how violated Gillian must have felt and feeling even worse trying to figure out how to help her. The main problem was, he first had to help himself: the pictures didn't trouble him directly, they did because they hurt her and he could not stand anything hurting the woman he loved. What he had troubles with was the feeling of inadequacy he could not shake off, generously topped with a deep sense of guilt that came back to haunt him every time Burns showed his hand. Gillian had tried to bail him out as they filled in Reynolds, and Cal knew she didn't want him to feel responsible for how things unfolded: but it was nearly impossible for him not to blame himself after they had just seen proof of how one act of selfless kindness had let to a peeping tom stalking them.
"He's gonna get arrested," Reynolds said then, not sure if he was being heard. "He violated the protective order, Wallowski said she'll update the judge who signed the order and get a warrant for his arrest."
"And it will all be over, right?" Cal mumbled, not looking at him as he spoke and missing the nod the agent gave back. "Do me a favour, will ya? Do try to find out what happened with him, yeah? Just for fun."
Reynolds nodded again, understanding two things in the flat way Lightman spoke to him while absently staring out of the living room window: that was his cue to leave, and there was absolutely nothing fun about any of it.