"Are you finished with her yet?" she asks it blithely, as though she's just remarking that the shine's worn off his dress shoes (though, it hasn't – wasn't gonna look like a complete tosser at a funeral that was so important to her, was he?).

He loses track of the trajectory of his hand for a moment, pauses in handing her the coffee he's just made her and clips his head sharply up in her direction. "What?"

"Are you done?" Her table looks large and lonely when she's the only one sitting at it but somehow... somehow she manages to hold it as her own. She's leaned forward and he turns a look over the hand she has half curled against its surface just before she lifts both palms into taking the cup. "With her?"

Wallowski, no doubt. Of course, Wallowski. And he leans the cup into hers, the other palm rising to assure that she's got the warming ceramic tucked tightly into her hands. Usually he'd let go (let go of her hands, let go of this discussion). Can't rely on 'usually' when she seems so vulnerably open to him, though. When, for once since shortly after they met, he can lift every emotion off her face like just another veil after the other. For once she's letting him - and it's absolutely astounding to him.

Disgust (for Wallowski herself? Nah, not really. For his repeated attachment to said Wallowski? Most likely.).

Annoyance as she lets him hold her hands (at his feigned confusion, no doubt).

Acceptance as he squeezes heat against them (that she will not, nor never, change him).

Pain when he stays unmoving (and he's absolutely unsure if its a leftover from Claire's funeral mass or if he's somehow inadvertently wounded her while trying to do anything but).

He cups his palms around hers, keeps them closed against the backs of her smaller hands as his shoulders lift in a minute shrugging that says more than his silence does – or it would, if she could hear in variations of quiet rather than intonations and vibrations of sound. Cal lets his breath shush through his lips before he meets her eyes again, finds their accusing darkness even in the grief that still reddens them up.

He is causing her pain in a way – and it seems she's decided to address that with a short limit of patience and tear reddened eyes. Right in the middle of her kitchen, when she's still covered in black and pale raw. He loosens her hands instantly and suddenly, like he's been chastised.

She is letting him see it, finally - the fact that having Wallowski around is scraping her edges up.

"Been finished for awhile, Gill," he admits quietly, shaking his eyes away from her under the realization that the small victory of forcing this particular admittance tastes like acidic and burning bile.

He hadn't necessarily been trying to hurt her. Hadn't been aiming for jealousy, had he? Well, maybe a bit. But, in the long run, in the big picture, a reaction was all he'd wanted – something that'd maybe nudge them closer together rather than wedging up between them and keeping them farther and farther apart, over and over again it seemed. But not like this. Not after she'd made a meekly groaned sound of need and hurt and desperation all at once while grasping at his hand at a funeral.

"No, it hasn't," Gill counters easily, more relaxed than he expects. "You're still - "

"S'just a game now, love." And it is, isn't it? It's back and forth and push and pull and reaching out of bounds. "You know I can't keep from - "

"Stop playing."

"Just like that?" he demands quietly, because her hands are still minutely shaking and she's still so layered in black that even her hair seems dark, her skin unnaturally pale, her voice cold. "Maybe the game's just getting good."

She glares pointedly up at him and it's nothing new, that look. But her tone, her unrepentant demand... "Do you love her?"

Gillian... do you love her?

"Course not."

Of course I do, darling...Of course I love her.

"Then stop playing."

Shoulda been a request but she's making it a demand instead – and who's she to make demands on where he puts what and when? Not like she's using any extra bits of him on her down time. "Why's this one bother you so much, then? Huh?"

"Because she keeps coming back." She presses up sharply from the table and he focuses on the coffee and how it sloshes slightly under the echoes of her movement, watches as it rings around the cup but doesn't spill. "You called her."

Right, but only to expedite things. Only to pull every string he could give a tug on. "Gill - "

"I called you and you..." she scoffs off a breathy noise, shaking her head away from his interested watching, "you called her."

"Because I knew I could get her to - "

"And you and I?" Her interruption is rampantly unchecked and he watches it roll on with fascination, breathing down some patience as she continues because this is absolutely unheard of, this level of raggedly emotional attachment she's showing him. "We were still the ones to do her job. Cal, she's not... never mind."

He blinks confusion, surprise at how quickly she's gone from fighting him to detaching. "Not what?"

"Nothing." The coffee she tidily lifts back to her lips isn't nearly enough distraction. Not nearly. She'll need a wall the size of China itself if she wants to bar up this particular conversation – not now that she's started it the way she has. Not when his pride's been tweaked just about as sharply as his affection for her.

Not when she's emotionally cracking and he's watching it happen (she's letting him see it) and he's legitimately and inexplicably torn between wanting to hear everything she has to say on the subject and just shutting her up with a ridiculously hard shag against her kitchen counter. Fucking gorgeous, she is. And especially when she's being so self righteously strong and uncharacteristically hypocritical and sweetly vulnerable all at once. Hell, she can be a mighty bitch sometimes. And he loves it. She'd have to be to match him at his fighting weight most days.

"Not good enough for me?" He dips his upper body stubbornly into her turned glance, forcing her head back as she draws the cup back out from between them. "That what you're implyin'?"

"Damn it, Cal." This time the slosh tips over the edge of the cup as she thunks it down and makes a pattern on her table that might otherwise draw his interest but he's too busy studying the furious but beautifully jealous strain on her facial features. "She's not me."

He stands still and astonished for a moment, lips parted in absolute surprise – that she'd say it, that she'd make the comparison, that she'd go there without his instigation.

So, yes, right then. He was finished with Wallowski, for good.

Because the demolished look on her ends him, and it (whatever it may have become), completely.

Because Wallowski isn't her. And that's the crux of the thing...

"Oh, I know that for a fact already. Trust in that." He bitterly agrees into the way she's watching him with the accusation still dark between them. "No, she's no saint. Then, neither am I. Right?"

She flinches and moves closer all at once and he can't help but see it as a sort of challenge, a teary gauntlet getting flung to the perfect tile of her kitchen. Because suddenly her face is impenetrable and steel to him, absolutely composed as her voice cools. "Are you finished with her?"

Cal shrugs under her near threat of posture. "Depends, I s'pose."

"No more," she murmurs quietly, the blue of her eyes so dark as she lifts a hand to the center of his chest and presses into the buttons of his dress shirt.

That kicks up his ire again, and rightly so. Like she's got any bit of say in it, even as she fiddles with the buttons on his shirt. Not when she's the master of pushing and pulling herself - keeps drawing a damn line and pulling him playfully over it so that she can wave behind him and give him a thwack for crossing over it. "And because why? We're not - "

Kissing. With tongue. They are, actually - and suddenly and hungrily. How they went from him intentionally being a shit to her kissing him so strongly, so angrily but desperately and with both hands flat to his stubbled cheeks and... Christ, she tastes like sweetened everything. Coffee with sweet cream and the little Butterscotch bit she'd been silently sucking on in the car and her tongue against his tastes so much better than he figured it might. Especially when she moans against his lips and leans closer, scrubs her palms warmer against his jaw and lets him suck against her tongue.

By the time he really realizes what the hell is happening she's nipping against his bottom lip and one of her hands has curled up under his throat and he has to try to rattle the fog from his brain just to get his hands even to hers. He curls his fingers along her jaw and presses back, not wanting to stop her even as he slows their mouths apart.

"Bloody hell, Gillian." His voice betrays him by groaning when he doesn't want her hearing anything of the sort and he catches her jaw, forces her head back far enough that she has to meet his eyes or turn her head away from the touch entirely. "What're you doin'? Huh? You lost your mind?"

She just blinks, calm, terrifyingly serene despite pink and roughed lips. "Are you done? With her?"

The way she's looking at him... plenty of women have given him that same fired and glazed look before. It's the blankness behind the blue glittering that worries him – the emptiness behind the gloss that says she looking more for a rough fucking against a wall (a table, a couch, a counter, or any mostly stable surface). More physical distraction than emotional acceptance. More unleashed lust than anything near the almost love he thinks maybe he sees on her any other time.

Well, and he'll be the one well and truly fucked if he gives her what she seems to actually be looking for, won't he? He won't be giving a goddamn inch (pun not necessarily intended but apropos, yeah?) til her eyes come back to the blue softness that he knows, the wide warmth that strains him weakened on an hour to hour schedule.

But... aw, Hell. Who is he kidding? Really?

He can't keep this answer from her, it's already passing his lips despite the fact that the more stubborn parts of him would prefer she squirmed a little. "Completely."

A tenth of a second – a fraction of teeny tiny time – that's all the smile he needs to see.

Because it's so utterly honest of her - and stunning.

"No more," Gillian nods knowledge into rubbing his jacket lapel between fingers and thumb.

"No more." He agrees as he watches her avoid his eyes, watches her cover her pleasure first with fidgeting and then slow simmering heat as she shakes her hair out of her face and brushes his jacket flat against his chest. "Cross my heart, darling."

"Cal - "

"Not gonna happen like this though." He amends softly, cradling her fingers off his shirt so he can squeeze against them as she exhales. "You want - "

"You." Gill breathes out cautiously. "I need you, Cal."

Those words. Those words and the world has become blindingly surreal. He has an instantaneous flashing image of that silly owl from those candy adverts – 'How Many Licks Does It Take'? How many kicks to the balls can he take before he gives in or gives up? Not many more. Especially not when she's using that tone of voice, not when she's grabbing onto him and holding instead of shoving him back or stalling him still.

Still... still. This is Gillian. And this is his brain telling him... not like this.

In every moment he'd ever considered something like this... it was not like this.

"To what? T'hurt you? Make y'feel something? Not like that," Cal murmurs intently, shakes his head against it. "Won't be me doin' that. You find it somewhere else."

"You are such a hypocritical son of a bitch sometimes."

Well... it's true, and she's right, and her eyes are sparked dark.

And he'd like to drag her dress off her and let his mouth mark down the entire stretch of her throat and all over those surprisingly symmetrical looking (mouth watering) breasts.

Not to mention that the cut of a black hemline across her thighs will have him daydreaming taking the backs of her knees in hand and just... well, he's always had a pretty active imagination. Fuel to the furious fucking fire.

"And you are gorgeous right now." Both his hands dig down on her hips and jerk her into him, draw her up tighter so that those slim hands are pressed on his chest and keeping them leveled upright together. "Never wanted you more, know that?"

In rapid order, from her eyes to her pretty lips: surprise, pleasure, fear, and more pleasure. Arousal. That's his best guess, though. Really. Because she's the one woman he's taught more than anyone else, more than any of his proteges, more than any of their employees. She's the woman he's made into his own self fulfilling prophecy of mystery. He's made her his blind spot, maybe half intentionally so...

"Need you - just as much." The admission goes grating off his throat a little quieter than he means it but she hears him with her wide eyes searching over his face just as well as she hears every tinted intonation in his voice. "But I got practice with patience, Gill. When it comes to you? I'm virtue fucking incarnate, yeah?"

"Cal - "

"Not like this, darling." It's a pleading argument but one she seems to suddenly understand, one that makes her blush completely as she blinks her eyes shut and squeezes them tighter closed. "Huh? Not like this."

One nod and she's swallowing in unspoken agreement. "Just... don't leave."

He smiles bittersweet, feels how repetitively worn but still entirely genuine it is, "M'not goin' anywhere, Gill."

She blinks rapidly at first and he can tell that she's shaking herself back to horrified realization, embarrassment forcing her eyes away from him and self reproach coloring her cheeks as she unconsciously wipes the pads of her fingers along one of her cheekbones. Cal frowns at the rise of shame over her features and touches the opposite side of her face in the same manner, following the pattern of her own touches with more gentleness than she's applying.

"Dislike goin' places without you anyhow, right?"

She weakly half smiles in response to the chipped off words and he matches the movement, sees that she's leaning into his hand before he feels the full press of her cheek against his fingers.

She's still flushed hot but he just keeps still on the warmth, watching her as she closes her eyes and buries her face farther into his hand.

"C'mon." He dips his head to the side even while his thumb is rubbing the rise of her cheekbone. "Drink your coffee."

"You'll stay?"

An army of rabid monkeys couldn't pry him off her at the moment and she's still worried he's on his way out the door? Sometimes her distrust of his intentions, of his actions... sometimes he wants to feel offended by it. But then, sometimes, he draws it out of her, yeah? And intentionally, he supposes. To keep them wedged apart. To keep her up and him down. Him out front and her safely tucked behind.

Except now... now she's wedged so tightly into him that he's near a hundred percent sure she's got a grand idea of how big his... adoration of her is. Namely because it's pressed flush against her thigh and if she doesn't stop leaning tighter heat into his groin she's gonna know the measure of more than just his supposedly saintly patience.

He chews into his lip, shrugs into rubbing his nose against her cheek and fully enjoying the simply intimate movement that just couldn't live anywhere else in their timeline. "You hungry? When's the last time you ate somethin'?"

Her shoulders mime a half shrug at him and he knows she isn't but it's a concession given so he curls his hand up along her neck, tugs her close so he can kiss roughly against the side of her head and half hug on her, "Drink your coffee. I'll make you something."

Her hesitation seems sweet but scared and he doesn't understand completely why until it ends. "I love you, Cal. I mean - "

"Maybe run you a hot bath, huh?" He's intentionally tucking her hair behind her ear, stroking it repeatedly and distracting himself from her words because if he actually hears them, well, he's fairly sure he's gonna pleasantly implode all over her pristine kitchen tile. "Let yourself soak while I make you - "

"Did you hear me?"

Yes. No. Fucking of course, 'yes', you beautiful and blindly innocent idiot.

Bleedin' Christ, yeah, he'd heard her. Loud and clear as a damn bullhorn.

(Yes. No. Was there a possible combination between both responses which would, at once, tell her that he felt that thing times a thousand but limit him from actually having to confess it out loud?)

"Of course I heard you, Gill," he kisses the words from in front of her ear to the tightening at the side of her mouth, rubbing the response against her lips as they part slightly. "Answering the only way I can, a'right? Emotionally stunted and vertically challenged, remember?"

He can nearly taste the coffee from her lips and tongue and it's never been so tempting a taste as it is when it's breathing in a near laugh past her lips and tantalizing along his.

"I want you to stay."

He finds the corner of her tentative smile with his lips and lets everything settle with the weight of one chaste kiss. "What'd I tell you? M'not goin' anywhere."