Zoe knows it well: the sensation of someone dropping an explosive grain of truth without knowing it. Truth wants to be spoken. Her daughter's innocent question and Gillian's whip-crack response send a surge up her spine before the magic lawyer-word recordings even hits.

In the momentary vacuum of silence that follows, Cal and Gillian send a few rapid signals between them across the dining table. That was the first small grain of sand that got under her skin, many years ago. The intimacy of it, impenetrable and unbreakable. But just now Cal looks chastened. And Gillian, without any makeup and after the kind of night Zoe doesn't want to think about, looks tired and concerned, not wasting her energy on anger.

Alec's will is forgotten. She and Gillian dancing their way around their place in the family house is inconsequential. Everything's contracted down to the table and the four people around it, in the room that's witnessed the highest and lowest of this family's moments.

It's easy to forget that Cal and Gillian's lives first intersected at the Pentagon, not just at the office. It was a world Zoe could not enter. Cal and Gillian had the most unusual of front-row seats, observing the observers and reporting back - or not, depending on which way the confidentiality privilege was flowing. Neither spoke about their work to Zoe. They couldn't. Which was fine with her. Cal came home with the same office anecdotes as anyone else in a gray suit and tie, told in his inimitable style. Zoe's scope of the law had been much saner and safer at ground-level at the time, sinking her junior lawyer teeth into megacorporations.

The Pentagon was supposed to be a temporary landing pad for Cal, a steady paycheque while he wrote up his doctoral thesis after they returned from Papua New Guinea. Once he was officially bonneted by Harvard, his student visa ran dry, but he was sponsored on loan to the Department of Defense from British MI6 as a Behavioural Science contractor. He was hilariously critical of the whole power structure that paid him handsomely for his services. As soon as he met the residency requirement, he assured her, he'd get his Green Card and be able to teach and research anywhere in the country, and tap into his contacts to work all over Europe. They envisioned taking Emily with them all over the place, giving her a wonderful breadth of experiences.

But to the Pentagon, the irreverent Englishman was too good an asset to let go.

They knew he was getting bored of the analytical desk work. He never told Zoe the specifics, except that they had offered him the sort of hands-on field work he'd excelled at in Belfast, in Bosnia. Further recognition and validation of his work. Spike in the pay grade. Send their little genius to bloody Maret School if they wanted.

The Pentagon made a deal with MI6 that extended his US contract for five more years and fast tracked his Green Card. Long enough for Emily to be deeply immersed in her own world of school (Grosvenor, not Maret) and her friends and sports, and far too clingy to transplant anywhere else. Long enough for Zoe to be working her way up in the District Attorney's office, clearly on a steep trajectory.

Two volatile people with patchwork family histories, they hadn't anticipated the comfort of a settled life, with Emily anchoring them in their marriage and in the house.

And the Pentagon hadn't anticipated Gillian. The gentlest beguiler of secrets, the quiet striking-surface to the restless match that was Cal.

None of them had anticipated Gillian's catalytic effect on Callum P. Lightman. Least of all Gillian herself, essentially becoming Cal's handler once he was out of the institutionalized world of the DoD. Gone rogue, the pair of them, two renegade shrinks operating as personal spies for hire behind their psychometric facial arrays and voice-pattern analysis.

"Dad, what did you do?" Emily darts a concerned frown between Cal and Gillian, and gingerly places the document box onto the table. She does not look at all surprised.

"Cal," Zoe echoes, folding her hands on the table, "What did you do?"

Cal sighs and scrubs at his hair. "There's a bit y'don't know yet, love. 'bout Alec." He's avoiding Gillian's gaze now but Gillian is still staring steadily at him, waiting. He's on his own explaining this one.

"You recorded Alec? While he was in the ICU?" Zoe prompts him gently, one hand shifting a little as if she's dreaming about jotting notes on a legal pad. A muscle-memory trick from law school. She doesn't want to forget this, whatever's going on.

Emily eases noiselessly back into her usual chair across from her, as if she's once again ten years old and expecting to be sent up to her room if this gets interesting.

Cal nods, scritching contritely at his stubbly chin. "Before he died, y'see, he called me. He wasn't at all well. He knew - he was a dying man, right, with things on his mind. T'be honest, at first I thought he must be up to summin'. Making trouble, bein' a right little -"

"Dad!"

Gillian takes a sip of her tea and shrugs one shoulder, watching Cal the way Cal watches other people.

"And all the drugs he was on weren't helpin' 'im stick to th' plot. But what he wanted to tell me about was the party boys he knew, who first got 'im hooked on cocaine, and then the shambles they made of the State Department later. I mean serious graft and influence-peddlin', darling. Drugs, girls, probably more. For votes, for contracts, for a seat at th' table. Alec had names and places, even a few dates. First time I saw 'im, I scratched a few notes down the back of an envelope. Then I memorized it all and burned it, soon as I could."

"That hot," Zoe tilts her head. Criminal intelligence is nothing new to her, and there are degrees of awfulness, but this one sets off her perimeter alarms. Especially being back in the house with their daughter three feet away. Too close, too close.

"More than. This is career-killin' stuff. Summin' well rotten in the District. An' he dropped all that lot on me on his way out."

She nods, trying to assess how close he is to actual negligence if he doesn't report this. It's not illegal not to report an old non-violent crime, but there is some language regarding people in public office and higher standards that she needs to read up on.

That's not her immediate concern, though. Cocaine follows money and always has, but drugs and girls all come from somewhere. There's always weapons, too. Reputation is everything in Washington. Some people will go to any lengths to preserve their power base and cover their asses. Money flows change direction and people get panicky and stupid, tragic things happen.

Or carefully calculated things happen, involving old grudges and alliances.

"People have been taken out for less exposure, in this town." Cal voices the very thought rattling in her head.

She and Gillian both send a quick look towards Emily, who is staring at Cal in fascination rather than seeming at all horrified by this. Zoe's hackles start to rise. What the hell kind of environment has Emily been living in here? And what's her devoted dad up to, moonlighting around behind Gillian's back with Alec? No wonder Gillian's pissed off about these tapes. Cal is about to launch on another reckless crusade out of his fatal sense of loyalty, and Gillian, no doubt, is trying to figure out what she needs to save his ass from this time, since she can't stop him.

Well, good luck to them.

"Cal. Look at me. Did Alec, at any time, mention anyone in present danger? Any shady deals about to go down?"

Cal does look at her, with mild rebuke. "Never leave anyone in danger, love, y'know that. No, everything he said was all in the past, five, ten years ago."

"Anyone he named still active at State? In politics?"

"Every last one. And pretty high up. But no, he didn't give any current information. At least not that he said. He was livin' in the past, by that point."

So he just recorded all this history and brought it home to think about. He'd been a visible presence at Alec's bedside and as Gillian pointed out, anyone could have been listening to their conversation. Endangering himself is all in a day's work, and Gillian can hold her own, but how could Cal even think of bringing evidence like this so close to their daughter? Keeping the tapes in a house that's been broken into more than once by people trying to stop him?

Cal knows the face she's wearing and holds up a hand in a peacemaking plea to let him finish his side before she blows, a gesture she still hates with a passion.

"So yeah, I got out my old dictaphone thingy to bring along with me when I visited. Still a good piece of kit. Can't hack 'em, can't clone 'em with a fancy mobile app. Anyone who got their hands on 'em would need the proper tape deck to get anythin' off 'em. Wouldn't stop anyone who really wanted, but might slow 'em down a little. I think Alec maybe had one person at State he might have trusted with it, but he never said who. I was hopin' he still might. And then he passed. So yeah, Emily, that's what those old answering machine tapes are."

"And here we are," Gillian says, with a pinched, bitter edge Zoe's never heard in her. Even their out-of-office social meetings have always been polite and gracious. This Gillian, at ease enough to be her unedited, justifiably cranky self in comfy old clothes, is a novel experience. It's a relief to see. It gives Gillian a fallible human depth where Zoe's only seen a mirror-finish before. Bit of burnt caramel to go with all that sweetness.

Zoe isn't sure which of their exes Gillian's bitterness is directed at. Both, probably. It's been less than twenty four hours, and Alec is no doubt as alive as ever in Gillian's psyche.

"Have you heard any of these tapes?" she asks Gillian.

Gillian shakes her head. "This is the first I've heard about them," she replies, aiming this towards Cal, those blue eyes gone chilly. Her hands are locked hard around her mug on the table. Cal looks guarded and miserable. Good. "All I know, which I learned only last night, was that Alec had information about his old dealers and their set. And that they'd been talking about it for a few weeks."

"I never intended - I told you I was gonna - "

"I know you meant to." Gillian says, very precisely and very pissedly. "But the fact remains you spent hours with Alec in the weeks before his death and not only didn't you tell me that, as a friend, as his ex-wife, but you somehow neglected to inform your business partner that you were collecting information that might affect us all. Again."

And Zoe is done being a calm legal presence.

"You didn't tell her anything? For weeks? You knew Alec was dying, and you decided it was in everyone's best interest if you just withheld that bit of information? What the fuck, Cal? And you've been keeping these tapes here, in the house, with our daughter home from school?"

In the corner of her vision she sees Emily swallow and start to fuss her hands nervously under the table in the old way Zoe remembers far too well. For Emily's sake she tries to bring herself down.

"We said, we always said no bringing dangerous files home from work. Either one of us. Better have our offices trashed than our home." She flings up her hands in frustration. "I mean not ours, anymore - fuck, Cal, you know what I mean. Whoever's living here now. This was supposed to be - "

"A place of safety in an unsafe world," Cal sighs. "Yeah. I know. Not for nothin', but Alec got a promise off me not to tell. Every time I saw 'im. Don't tell Gillian till I'm gone. Every fuckin' time. I caved anyway. Was just waitin' for a chance to tell you last night, when he took a turn and the hospital called. Never had a chance to figure out who to bring all this business to next. Dunno who I can trust these days, or in what building. Not lettin' any cops near it. Nobody in the FBI. DoD wouldn't care unless it's proof someone's war plans got bollixed. Anyone at State would either use it for no good, or pass it off to th' police to investigate anyway. I was gonna move it all to the office safe this week. Not that I liked that any better, not with all th' staff running about th' study."

"And me knowing the combination," Gillian adds, for good measure. "If you haven't changed it again." Cal looks a little green.

"I haven't. I meant Loker and Torres. They don't need t' know. Best they don't, yeah?"

"Fine, but I did need to. Wait. Is my name on those tapes?"

"Yeah, but it's not - Gill, it's not like that. He just needed to get it all off his chest. I let him talk and asked a few questions. Soon as he started veerin' off into personal stuff I'd bring him back. You'll hear for yourself."

"Cal. We've been targeted by extremely dangerous people more than once because of what we know. I probably knew some of the people he talked about. I probably had suspicions back then. My name is right there on those tapes, if anyone gets hold of them. Best case scenario, with a legit investigation, I'm still going to be questioned when this all comes out. And you've been sitting on this for three weeks. I never had a chance to talk to Alec about this. I know, I know, he didn't want me near it. Well, guess what - I am."

Zoe feels just a little pity for Cal. It's obvious he'd meant to clear this up with Gillian alone, thinking he had a little more time. He wasn't expecting the women to gang up on him. He must've been dreading a moment like this for years, and it's a big one.

She takes a series of deep breaths that all the books and her yoga teacher keep telling her is supposed to calm her down. She's only came here to offer support and unpaid legal advice regarding Alec's death, and now this. Coming at all was a pretty big gesture, given the tension that's always existed between Gillian and herself, and her whole history with Cal. And now she wants nothing more than to march Gillian to the B with her and get them both roaring drunk.

"Well - " Emily reminds them of her presence softly, hesitantly, looking from one face to the next. "What would be the best thing you could do with the tapes now? What would you want to have happen?"

That, Zoe has to admit, is Gillian's influence showing, not hers.

"Safe storage, not here," Zoe raps out. "If you're not going to erase and ignore them. This is some serious shit. Get it the hell out of the house. At least till you know what to do next. At least not while Emily's here."

And Gillian too? she wonders. How long Gillian is planning to stay here is one question she won't ask.

"Hundred percent," Gillian says, just as fiercely. "And not the office. If this can't go to the police right away - and I agree, it'll need a trusted contact - you need someone who literally owes you their life, Cal, and has the means to guard those tapes with it by any means necessary. Don't tell me you don't know anyone like that."

That gets Cal thinking. Clearly he does know more than one person who fits that description. Zoe rolls her eyes.

"No, you're right," he says. "Tapes need to disappear for a while. Buy me some time. Soon as we publish Alec's obituary, everyone's gonna find out, and some of 'em are gonna wonder if he took what he knew to th' grave or not. We'll have to wait till that dies down, and then find out who's got the stones to open a full and formal investigation and take th' heat for it."

"Someone with a decent security detail and political power," Zoe adds, still buzzing red around the edges, but able to focus once a plan is needed. "Have to be someone too visible in the media to shut them up or do them harm, and someone with nothing to lose, and nothing to prove. An old guy. Or gal. A lifer."

"They'll try to discredit Alec anyway," Gillian points out, more quietly. "As an addict and a willing participant - an observer, at least, who failed in his duty to report back then. And he was heavily medicated on those tapes. They can't be reliable evidence."

It hits Zoe that those tapes contain Alec's last words in his voice. It looks like it's just hit Gillian, too.

"Deathbed testimony is usually taken very seriously in court," Zoe reminds her. "When the time comes. But…what if there's something in the will?" she suggests, her eyes falling on the forgotten document box by Emily's hand, "He might have left a contact. If he'd been holding on to all that regret for so long."

Emily pushes the box towards Gillian. Gillian nods mutely and gets up slowly to find her purse, with her keys.

Cal gets up to pace around and make more tea.

Zoe decides it's a good time to go upstairs and grab a few things from her old room.

Some parts of the old dance haven't changed, she thinks, going up the familiar stairs at the back of the house. Dinner table tension, with only Emily's presence holding them back from a full-on fight. Then Cal would take refuge in the kitchen while Zoe retreated to her study. In the old days, Emily would have been sent to her room, and later, would stomp her way upstairs to escape them or slam her way out the door to go to a friend's house.

Only this time, there won't be a proper fight to clear the air and make-up sex after. This time, Gillian comes back to sit at the table, Emily's hand resting on her arm, the two not needing to speak. Cal's asking if anyone wants toast with their tea, for some reason known only to Brits.

And Zoe, for the first time, thinks I don't live here anymore.

Even the banister feels different under her hand.

"Eva's napping with the baby. Just you and me, Gilly."

Gillian is in the guest room, walking in slow circles with her phone pressed to her ear. Wishing house phones still had long coiled cords she could untwist and retwist as she paced. She's willing to bet Cal still has one.

Alec's will is locked up in the safe again, after Zoe made a copy to take with her, on the old fax machine. She's still on retainer as a legal advisor for the Lightman Group, and this has not changed. Emily has taken her out for dinner and will drop her at her B later. Cal is…she's not sure. He had turned on the television and was watching a soccer game without seeing a thing, when she came upstairs. Which is fine with her. He's waiting for her to shout at him, and she's going to, but first things first.

Natalie's voice is so like her own, just a fraction higher in register, which only people with perfect pitch, like the two of them, would notice. Natalie speaks softly, soothingly, walking around her own house twelve miles away in her stocking feet, so as not to wake her wife and son, curled up in the big bed upstairs. Gillian can just see them, serious little Ethan, two and half and frowning with concentration in his sleep, squished as tightly as possible against Mama Eva.

Nat went over and above to help Alec, for Gillian's sake, finding him spots in elite top-tier rehab centers and a clinical trial for a new anti-addiction medication. She might have forgiven him the relapses, which as a doctor she knows as well as Gillian are part of the process. But she'll never forgive Alec for lying to Gillian about it, and for costing Gillian the chance to carry a pregnancy of her own. She'd warned him about the effects of cocaine on sperm quality. (Not to mention the effect of chronic stress on conception and implantation.) Alec had not wanted to use donor sperm for IVF. He couldn't get his head round that. And then he'd blamed another relapse on the failed adoption of Sophie, and created a whole new level of emotional distance instead of being part of comforting his wife and working through it.

Gillian doesn't think she will ever forgive Alec for that. She doesn't let herself think about it much these days, but when she does, she doesn't even want to be in a place to forgive him.

She's blazing furious with Cal but she's desperate for them to find a way past this. If they can. Even with their history, which has plenty of supposedly insurmountable roadblocks and pits, this is big.

She sort of wishes she were out with Zoe and Emily right now. Maybe slip back to her townhouse and send him a text from there so he knows she's safe, at least. But the Lightman house, and this room, are starting to claim her. She's already considered which of her work outfits she might want to keep in the closet. But she won't feel comfortable here until the air is cleared.

All reactions to a death are normal, she reminds herself.

"How was Jakarta?" Gillian asks, stalling. If she closes her eyes she can picture Natalie touching and stroking things as she walks, reorienting herself with home, the bookshelf, the sofa, Ethan's current Lego project, the piano.

"Fine, as these things go. Mutated virus, now with a local vaccination program in place. Loss of life relatively minimal, but you know how every death hits…"

Natalie's generally based in DC with lab research and patient trials, these days, as the NIH Head of Epidemiology and with a growing family, but sometimes there isn't anyone else with her experience to send on a field mission.

"I do know. I'm sorry, Nat. Your work is so important. And I'm sorry for what I've got to tell you, too."

The soft pacing stops "What's going on?" Natalie asks, as casually as if she hadn't returned Gillian's message the moment she had any privacy.

"Honey, Alec passed away last night."

There's a small silence, then Natalie, carefully: "Oh, Gilly, I'm sorry. I know he tried - "

"He was clean, Natty. For years. I wanted - I wanted you to know that. I think he'd have wanted you to know that."

"Oh. I'm sorry again. Me of all people, I shouldn't have assumed - "

"No sorry. It's the obvious assumption. But no, he didn't overdose. It was still the cocaine, though. Multi-system failure from chronic damage."

Natalie sighs. "That's rough. Addiction catching up after years of sobriety."

"Like Dad."

"Little too much like Dad. How are you holding up? Does Cal know yet?"

"He's - yeah, he does. He was with me, actually. Took me to the hospital to say goodbye. I'm here now."

She doesn't have to say where.

"Good. I'm glad."

"I might be staying here a while," Gillian hears herself say, and rolls her eyes at the confessional undertone that Natalie will not miss. She hears herself babbling a little, rationalizing: "Emily's only here a few more days before she heads off to Chicago with Zoe, so…"

My house is too empty. Cal won't do well alone here, either.

"Mm. Yeah. Spend every minute you can with that girl. She's a special. Glad we got to see her once this holiday, at least."

"She is."

Nat is not fooled, but she knows when not to push. (And when to push hard.) "So…how are you doing? What can I do? You want us to give you space or come distract you? Get Cal and Ethan to wear each other out playing soccer so we can talk?"

Gillian smiles. That sounds wonderful, but not just yet.

"You're doing it, Natty. I just needed you to know, to hear your voice. Would you believe Zoe's in town? She's helping answer some legal questions and helping us with the paperwork."

"Really! Was she here already or did she fly out?"

"Flew right out."

"Well, good for her. I didn't think she and Alec had much connection, though. I mean…"

"No, they didn't, really. Never had much to do with each other unless we did a couples dinner or something. It sounds strange, but I think she came mostly for me."

"I can see it. People can surprise you."

"They certainly can." She takes a breath. "Hey, Nat?"

"Hey, what?"

"It's early days, but it looks like Alec left me everything. Almost everything. And it's big."

There's another pause.

"Well, I have to admit I'm glad for your sake. How big is big? You sound a little shocked."

"Shocked is right."

She tries to explain slowly. It hasn't sunk in yet.

Unless Alec has made substantive changes to the four year old will that Zoe read out loud, he's left her nearly everything: the house and its contents, his investments, two bank deposit boxes with unknown contents (family jewellery, she thinks), and all of the benefits that Zoe mentioned. The two other bequests are a sum of $50,000 to be given to his older brother, Matt Foster, or his inheritors, if any. Some of that is to be used to trace the elusive Matt within reasonable means. If he is not found within ten years to the day of the execution of his will, then that sum reverts to Gillian. Alec has also made a Planned Giving arrangement of $10,000 to Narcotics Anonymous World Services.

When all is said and done, with the current value of the house, she's looking at about a million and three quarters plus spousal benefits, before any examination of his debts. Gillian doesn't think there will be any nasty surprises, especially if he's been clean for years. It's not a whopping fortune in DC terms, and it's nearly all home equity and long term locked-in investments, but it's a solid jump to where they would have been as a well-paid professional couple heading into their forties, if their path together had unrolled as they planned. They may have burned through a chunk of their combined savings on IVF and rehab, years of counseling and Sophie's adoption, but they were also very careful spenders and investors.

She's still paying off the last two rounds of IVF from five and six years ago, something which she has relegated to automatic payments so she doesn't have to think about it. She'll be able to pay those off entirely. She'll be able to pay off her townhouse and upgrade her ten year old car and still have lifetime stability, combined with her own investments. A lot of choice in the things she decides to do.

How fucking ironic. She thought she'd be carefully budgeting to send a houseful of children off to various activities at this point in her life, and stashing as much as possible for college. With or without Alec. She'd always known she couldn't count on a future with him. Maybe that was one reason she'd hung on so tightly to the days they had, despite everything.

"Good Lord," Natalie says finally. "I gotta say, that's decent of him. And don't you dare feel a particle of guilt about it."

"I actually don't. And I'm not letting him buy his way out of the awful things he did, either."

"I'm glad to hear it. And I'm glad you're with Cal. I mean, there at the house. Let him in a bit, Gilly. You know he'll want to be there for you."

"Oh, you got that right."

It jumps out ahead of her thoughts, snark and all.

"Oh?"

"He - Cal knew Alec was dying for weeks, and didn't tell me. Until last night. Alec made him promise not to tell. And I am angry and confused and I should be downstairs blasting him for it right now, but I'm tired, Natty. And I can't help but see where he's coming from. And I know he's been literally losing sleep over it. But he needed to tell me."

"What the hell?" Natalie cuts in part way. "How the - how do you not tell someone that? I've seen more than a few unusual end-of-life situations, but that's - Alec thought he could - and Cal just - Jesus, Gill, I don't know which of them I want to yell at first."

"If you and Zoe could do the yelling for me, that'd be great. She's already made a good start."

"Oh, I plan to. Seriously, he knew and didn't say a word?"

"Nope. And I know he was trying to protect me, and I know exactly how persuasive Alec can be once he's found some leverage. But when Cal gets his head stuck on a promise…he knows I'm pissed with him. He's downstairs waiting for a fight, I think."

"And you don't want one."

"I don't want one. But we need one. He's feeling awful, but he fucked up bigtime. And he won't let go of feeling awful until I'm finished with my side, too."

"You're not responsible for how he's feeling about his own actions, Gilly. Quit that."

She sighs. "Yeah, I know."

"We've both learned that the hard way. Don't forget it now."

"I won't."

"It's not like you to avoid a scene with him. Which I think my big sister would say means something."

"That there's still some unexplored issues to be resolved. Yeah. Your big sister would be right."

"She usually is."

"Four minutes makes all the difference."

"Yeah, but I'm cuter. I'm gonna have to go, babes. You'll call me tomorrow?"

"I will. Is that Eva I hear? Give her a hug from me."

She decides not to tell Natalie about Alec's other bequest. The fewer people know about that the better. It's a shame Emily found out the way she did, but she's rapidly becoming an adult member of the household. It's not ideal for her to be in this small circle, but it's right.

And now, Cal.

She puts her phone down carefully on the old battered school desk that was Emily's once upon a time. She glances down at herself, as if dressing for battle will somehow be of help here. This is not a pink dress and expensive makeup day. This is bare face and bare feet and old jeans and just the two of them. No filters and no damn scotch. Not tonight.

She listens at the door of the guest room for a moment. All is silent. If Cal still has the television on, he's turned the sound off. Emily won't be home for a couple of hours at least. Zoe hustled them both out of the house so quickly that Gillian knew it was deliberate, leaving her and Cal the space.

She steps out and moves down the wood-panelled corridor to the stairs. This house has seen so many fights. Cal and Zoe, for years. Emily, raging against her parents. Cal and Gillian, bickering over the business, over Cal's latest boneheaded plan. Why can't this be the place of safety in an unsafe world that Cal always wanted for his family?

Maybe it can be. But she's tired of being the peacemaker and the bigger person every damn time. She can't keep doing that and feel like she has a place here. If that's where she and Cal are headed, someday, it has to be on terms of equal responsibility.

She goes downstairs, quietly. She knows Cal is listening for her. At the bottom of the stairs she turns left, into the living room.

Cal's sitting on the couch where she saw him last, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring into the middle distance. The television is on mute, as she thought. She picks up the remote from the coffee table and clicks it off. The small clatter as she lets the remote drop startles them both.

"Did you think of anyone yet," she asks with disarming mildness, "to give the tapes to?"

Alec hadn't mentioned anyone in his will to be trusted with anything in particular, except her.

Cal looks up, bloodhound-sad and red under his lashes. He's been rubbing his eyes and all his hair is standing on end. He shakes his head.

"Tell me why, Cal. Besides promising Alec, I know that much. But you didn't have to promise him anything. That was my ex-husband dying, and you knew it since the night Emily came home. What the fuck did he do to deserve your promise over telling me?"

Okay, maybe she does want a fight.

"I didn't mean it that way!" It bursts from him. He spreads his arms defensively and lets them drop. "I mean, yeah, first time I saw him, I knew 'e was in a bad way. He had things on 'is mind. I didn't think 'e was really dyin', Gill, not so soon, not like that. So yeah, he said, don't tell Gillian till I'm gone and you know it'll be better for her, and in that moment I was just tryin' to humour a sick man." He pauses, and scrubs a hand back through his hair. "So of course I said, no, man, I won't tell her. I had no fuckin' clue he was gonna start tellin' stories like that. Or that he was lucid enough to know I'd promised not to tell, and keep makin' me promise. If he thought for a second I'd told you he was in hospital, he'd have shut up and not said another word to me about the drugs and shit. He didn't want that near you any more than I do. And he had a point, you know. That knowin' he was in there dyin' for weeks would have been the worse for you. And you saw him. He didn't want you seein' him like that."

"I don't care what he looked like! Don't you know I've spent years imagining him turning up dead in a thousand different ways? That the worst part of my nightmares, the part that woke me up, Cal, was not being able to say goodbye? So tell me, was it worth it, was it fucking worth it just to keep him talking about about drug pushers and God knows what else? What do you even hope to do with all that?"

He looks up at her again, slightly glassy. "I dunno, love. Honest, I don't. I know it was eatin' him alive. I just wanted him to get it out while 'e could. He trusted me to get it to someone who could do summin'. Stop a few other bastards endin' up like him, maybe. I didn't think 'e deserved to die with all that on his mind. Seemed like a little thing at first. And I thought, maybe, there'd be something in there that might help you as well."

"Help me how? Understand his addiction? I have a whole PhD in Clinical Psych. I lived with him for thirteen years. I understood his addiction better than he did."

"I guess I thought…I hoped…he'd say summin' about what he done to you over the years. At least recognize it. And 'e did. You'll hear 'im, Gill. But I thought he'd rally a bit and want you to come see him after all. Not make me keep lyin' to you. Honest, I did. How in hell would he not want to see you, in the end?"

She shakes her head slowly. Cal hadn't understood Alec's fatal streak of pride. He needed to appear at his best and on top of his game at all times, to all people, even at home with her. It was just one of his puzzle pieces that left him vulnerable to cocaine, or what he thought it could do for him. The confidence he lacked in real life, the euphoria, the acceptance by those more powerful, the energy to work later and harder to come out ahead of the others.

No, he wouldn't have wanted her to see him wasted and frail as he had been. Even though she believed he'd been vaguely aware of her presence and glad of it, at the very end.

She steps over and sits beside him on the old couch. Not near enough to touch, but she holds out her hand. He's surprised. So is she. He takes her hand very gently, sliding his fingers through hers and watching their hands contemplatively.

"So that's what made it seem like a good idea to take that choice from me? To make that decision for me?"

"Well, that's mostly it."

He knows he can't hide any part of this from her. He has an eerie calm about him, now, as if the worst is going to happen regardless, so he might as well say it. In for a penny, in for a pound, as he says.

"What, then?"

"The look on your face. Years ago. When you said Alec wasn't talking to you at all. After Sophie. That's when I knew things weren't ever comin' back, for you two. He took the light right out of your eyes, and he knew it. He said it. And he still wouldn't ask for you, to say that to your face and apologize. And I didn't want 'im anywhere near you ever again. Bein' completely, nakedly honest. I was willin' to do that one favour for him and listen to 'im talk, let him die knowing he'd done summin' right in giving that evidence. But he didn't deserve you. He didn't fuckin' deserve you. An' I'm not sayin' I do, any more than he did. But he fuckin' well didn't. So I didn't…I'd have called you the very second 'e asked for you, of course I would, but it's not like I was urgin' 'im to reconsider, y'know what I mean? Might as well admit that. But I still thought 'e would, sooner or later."

Oh, Jesus, she's not going to cry, she's not. Of course he'd seen the true depth of the wounds marriage to Alec had left on her heart, her mind. Her body too - three miscarriages and years of fertility treatments were hell on earth. Of course he'd throw himself between her and any possible repeat of that.

He starts to let go of her hand, and she grips tighter. She needs to stay mad a little longer.

"You know what lying and taking someone's choices away does to a person's trust, right?"

He nods miserably. "You know how many times a day I nearly opened my mouth to tell you?"

"I can imagine. But you have to know Alec's lying is what broke me, Cal. After years of cleaning up after him, keeping him safe by any means necessary. Including keeping his ego safe. It was the lying that finally broke me. And it is too soon and I am too tired to explain it all in great detail, but I can't have that in any relationship ever again."

"Yeah," he mumbles. "S'what I meant. I'm no better for you, am I? You know how I am with gettin' in over my head and tryin' to sort it out before you can yell at me."

"But I keep coming back."

"Yeah. You're good at that. Or bad at that? I dunno."

She takes a painful inhale. Reminds herself that it's still Day One. Reactions are going to be all over the place for a while. Nevertheless, there are boundaries she absolutely must lay down and stick to.

"We were getting closer," she murmurs, watching their hands again. They're nearly the same length from palm to fingertip: they measured them once. She doesn't mean closer in general. She means closer to being together. They both know it.

Cal doesn't miss the past tense.

"Were you waitin' for me to make an actual move, or was I waitin' for you? I dunno anymore."

"It was so good, Cal. Every time we made just a little bit of progress."

"I know, love. I'd be high as a kite for days after you smiled at me like that. Like we both knew what we were thinkin'."

"I almost stayed with you that night."

"Know that too." He gives her hand a small squeeze. "I'd have told you everythin' if you had, bugger Alec and his wantin' me to keep you away. You know that, right? Couldn't have kept anythin' from you. Wish to bloody hell you'd stayed, Gill. I'd have told you and he'd have shut up about anything else and we'd never know about it. Whatever you had to go through with 'im, I'd have been there, whatever you needed. And you could go on shoutin' at me for bein' a complete knob and I'd have smiled every time."

Which is rather different from not wanting Alec anywhere near her, but just as much the truth of the moment.

"But that's not what happened, and you kept going back and getting deeper into it. Cal, your willingness to not keep things from me can't be contingent on if you think we're getting intimate."

"No, it's -"

She fixes him in place with a look. "That's what has to come first, Cal. The honesty."

The look he gives her in return is longer and inscrutable. Then: "You sayin'...Gillian, you sayin' there's still the smallest chance? Or you talkin' hypotheticals?"

For the life of her, she doesn't know how she wants to answer. For once, she wishes Emily would come banging into the house with her usual comedic timing. But they're on their own this time, she and Cal.

"I can't answer that," she finally says. "It's too soon."

Because she's Gillian, she sees the flicker of hope somewhere very deep in the intensity of his gaze on hers, and swallows down the spark of delight that has no place here tonight.

With many, many thanks to LadyDedlock for bringing Natalie Durant back to life so vividly, as Gillian's twin. Fans of Kelli Williams will know Natalie from the one-season Medical Investigation, and her (later) wife Eva Rossi Durant as well. (For more on the burgeoning Durant family, go and read the beautiful In Between Forever series!)