A/N: SPOILER ALERT! This is set after Killer App. If you haven't seen it yet, this is your last warning - STOP READING! And please come back later. : ) If you have seen it, carry on...
Disclaimer: Not mine. But I wish it was, because I would never, ever leave us all hanging like they did!
"Gillian. Do you love her?"
"Course I do, darlin'. Course I love her."
"No I mean, really love her."
"Yeah."
"What are you waiting for?"
"I don't have an answer for that one, love."
###############
"Hello, love."
"Hi," she said with a tired, sweet smile as she looked at him through her open front door.
"I just wanted to check on you. See how you're doin', you know," he said as he shoved his hands in his pockets and averted his gaze. If she hadn't been so tired, so emotionally spent, she probably would have been able to name the something that flashed in his eyes. But she couldn't name it, so she just attributed it to her mind playing tricks on her.
"I'm ok," she replied unconvincingly. "Come in?"
"Don't mind if I do," he said as he shuffled past her into her home.
She gave him another weak smile, and he returned it saying, "Come sit with me," as he put his hand on her lower back.
Gillian looked around a little, and started walking toward the couch before over-thinking the fact that Cal had just invited her to sit in her own home. Sitting down, she tucked her legs under herself and looked over at him, thankful that she wasn't spending another evening alone with her thoughts.
Giving her an encouraging look as he tipped his head to the side, he asked, "Why did you call me?"
"What?" she asked confused. She hadn't called him tonight...
"After you called 9-1-1. Why did you call me?" he asked gently.
She looked down at the floor, puzzled as to why he was asking her this. "I, uhm," she shook her head, indicating she wasn't sure why. She assumed it was a given... "You're my best friend. It seemed logical to call you. I needed someone there with me, and you were the first person I thought to call." She finally looked back up at him, her brow furrowed.
He nodded and gave her another small smile in an effort to ease the confusion building on her features.
"It broke my heart. Seein' you like that." He swallowed and re-focused on her before continuing. "I felt this need, this drive to protect you, even though I knew there was nothin' I could do. It made me feel helpless. I just…wanted to hold you. Make it go away," he confessed as he watched her face. He felt a pain in his chest as he realized how vulnerable she looked.
Her eyes were bouncing back and forth between his and flitting over his face as her lips parted in silent question. Her mind was spinning so fast that she couldn't think of anything at all. There were so many thoughts that everything seemed blank.
She wanted to tell him that she was tired of pushing him away, that she just wanted him to hold her. She wanted to tell him that maybe if he held her long enough, it would all go away. She wanted to tell him that she never felt safer than when he was near her.
But she couldn't make any of those things come out, so she just continued to look at him and blink.
When she didn't verbally respond to him, he took a breath and continued. "Your strength never ceases to amaze me. Even when you're faced with so much, you hold it all together. It's incredible, really."
She nodded at him, looking up at the ceiling as she fought back tears and tried to hold it together a while longer.
"There's no shame in letting go," he told her.
Pulling her eyes back down to him, she wiped at her eyes and said, "I'm tired of crying!"
He smirked at her and wiped away a stray tear she'd missed. She drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and shakily let it back out. Pulling herself together and re-focusing on Cal, she sat a little straighter on the couch and untucked one of her legs, letting it fall off the couch.
Cal looked across the room at a picture Gillian had in a frame in her bookcase. It was of the two of them at some business function they'd been at together. He had the same one in his office, and he smiled inwardly realizing she pretty much had him around all the time. He was there physically at the office, and he was there on her bookshelf when she got home.
Looking back over at her he said, "Emily broke up with her boyfriend."
"Oh! How is she?" Gillian asked concerned.
"She's alright. Seemed more concerned about me than herself," he stated, leading her in the direction he wanted.
Gillian drew her brow together. "Why is she concerned about you?" she asked.
"I think she's worried I'll be alone forever," he stated.
"You're not alone, Cal," she told him.
"I know that, and I've told her that. But there's a difference between not being alone, and bein' with someone." He watched her face as she considered his statement.
After nodding her head to herself she replied, "That's very true." She had a distant look in her eyes now, like he had just smashed her dreams or crushed her reality.
"She asked me something else that you'll never believe," he said, drawing her eyes back to him.
"What?" she asked with interest as she watched him.
"She asked what I was waitin' for," he simply stated.
Gillian, not being sure what he was talking about, furrowed her brow tighter than he'd ever seen.
He leaned forward and twisted his body so he was facing her and said, "She asked me about you."
She shook her head slightly and narrowed her eyes, not understanding how Emily's asking what Cal was waiting for was connected to how she was coping with Claire.
Cal licked his lips and placed his arm across the back of the couch, drawing Gillian's eyes to it as it lay close to her shoulder. She drew her eyes back to him as she waited for him to clarify.
"She was askin' how I feel about you, if I loved you, and all that. I said I did–"
"Of course," she cut him off, "because we're friends."
"That's what I said," he told her with a smile as he started to wonder if he should leave the conversation alone. If she went there in her mind, maybe that's all it was and she was trying to tell him to stop; but there was a voice nagging in the back of his mind telling him that maybe she wasn't telling him to stop. Maybe her mind took the same path his did.
"That wasn't what she meant though," he offered.
Gillian drew her head back slightly, her bloodshot eyes becoming suddenly focused. "What did she mean?" she asked.
"After I said that I did, she said, 'No, I mean really love her'."
Gillian felt her heart jump in her chest as the realization of what Cal was saying washed over her. It jumped again when it registered that someone else had asked him. She started to wonder if a lot of people had this question.
"What did you say?" she asked so quietly that were it not for the eagerness in her eyes, he wouldn't have been sure he'd heard it.
"Yeah."
"Yeah?" she asked, wanting a little clarity.
"Yeah," he said again with a nod. "I love you as my best friend, as my business partner, and as one of the best people I know. But I love you so far beyond that. That's just the tip of the iceberg, really."
He waited for his words to catch up to her ears. He watched as she looked down. And he willed her to look back up when she kept her eyes away from him for too long.
When she finally looked back up at him, her eyes were bright with tears and she had a wide smile on her face. Unable to form words through the tears that were threatening to spill over on her cheeks, she only said, "I'm sorry," as she looked back down.
"No need to be sorry, darlin'," he told her as he put a finger under her chin to raise her face back up. "It's terrible timin' on my part. You've got a lot goin' on."
She laughed lightly when she saw the semi-pained looked on his face. "You do have terrible timing." She reached behind her to grab a tissue to dry her eyes with. Crumpling it into a ball, she put it back on the table and turned around again. Taking in a deep breath and composing herself she requested, "Can you say that again?"
"It's terrible timin' on m–" he started before she cut him off.
"Before that," she said with a slight roll of her eyes.
Giving her a shit-eating grin he said, "Yeah."
Shooting him an annoyed look she said, "After that."
His face softening, he slid his arm down the back of the couch so his hand was resting on her arm. He placed his other hand over hers that were resting in her lap, and he finally said, "I love you. With everythin' in me, and in every way possible."
Gillian smiled and bit her lip, letting his words sink in. Before she had a chance to respond, he continued.
"I know this isn't the ideal time to tell you this, but–"
"Cal," she cut him off again. "I can't think of a better time. I just lost someone I care about deeply," she took one hand and put it over top of his, "and it's moments like this in life that make you re-evaluate everything around you, it makes you want to tell people that they're important to you."
She paused momentarily, looking at her hands holding his, feeling the fingers of his free hand curled around her arm. She closed her eyes at the feeling of security she had in that moment, and then drew her eyes back to him.
"I called you because I didn't want anyone else. I knew if there was anyone that could make me feel safe, make me feel like it was going to be ok, it was you. I just wanted you near me. You're always there for me when I need you." He gave her a look letting her know he would always be there, no matter what.
She started to feel a pit form in her stomach, and she said, "I don't want you to doubt this. I don't want you to…attribute this…to my emotional state." She looked in his eyes, pleading for him to understand. "Tell me you won't."
"I won't," he promised.
She nodded, then ran her fingers over the length of his, watching as they trailed along his skin. Running them back up she looked in his eyes and said, "I love you too."
Cal immediately pulled his hands away from her and placed them on her cheeks, leaning into her and giving her a soft, tender kiss which she immediately returned.
Pulling apart, Cal said, "Can you say that again?"
"Tell me you won't," she said with a teasing smile.
"After that," he said, returning her smile.
Seriousness settling in, she repeated, "I love you."
I like my ending waaay better. : D
I have several other stories I'm committed to currently, so I doubt anything else will come of this. I am, however, leaving it 'in progress' for the time being. We'll see what the muse fairy brings...