Title: Necessary Deception
By: Jessica
Pairing: Eric/Calleigh
Rating: T
Timeline: Post 7x24. Contains spoilers for 7x24 and possibly 7x25.
Summary: If it meant breaking her trust to keep her safe and sound, then there was no question as to what Eric would do, every single time.

A/N: I have no idea what is actually going to happen in the season finale, so there is a fair chance that next week's episode could render this quite AU. And that's partially why this isn't one of my best - I had to run with the idea before the idea became obsolete, after all. ;) It's so nice to return to angst, by the way. :)

He found her outside in the Miami sunshine, her golden locks sparkling in the bright rays of light. Alone she sat on the steps, her back to him, and for a moment, Eric could only watch from the doorway, the sounds from the interior of the crime lab behind him fading away to a dull hum within his ears. His entire attention was focused upon her – her posture, her stillness, her seclusion on the far side of the steps. Just the sight sent his heart spiraling into guilt, the burn of which he would swear was worse than that of the concentrated sodium hydroxide from the case they'd worked on together.

At least, they'd worked together in theory. Ever since that dreaded phone call, Calleigh had shut herself off from him, and while Eric couldn't say he didn't feel he deserved it, it baffled him that it had only gotten worse after he'd come clean. Her emotions were still a complexity to him, but Eric knew her well enough to know when she was agitated. And agitated…well, that was merely an understatement. She'd refused to meet his eyes, even as their conversation had drifted to strictly casework. The few glances he'd snuck from the corner of his eye in the lab hadn't comforted him much either.

He knew her nervous reactions. For years he'd been able to gauge her anxiety by watching her face, her hands, from the way she tucked her hair behind her ears, to the way she nibbled determinedly at her bottom lip, among the others that he'd witnessed throughout the day. Her smiles were few and far between, never quite reaching her eyes, and to know that he was the reason behind her sudden pulling away had eaten at him for the entire day.

With a deep breath, Eric slowly began his approach, his footsteps almost silent atop the concrete walkway. He was a few steps away from her when he gently called her name, hoping not to startle her. "Hey, Cal?"

Calleigh gave a quiet sigh, and Eric couldn't help but frown at the slight tensing of her body. For a moment, she said nothing, glancing over her shoulder to him only when his steps brought him within mere inches of her. "Hey," she murmured, offering only the quickest glance, not quite meeting his eyes.

Eric could sense her discomfort, but still couldn't stop himself from laying a hand at her shoulder, squeezing gently. "I was looking for you," he explained softly, biting at the inside of his cheek. There was something about her right now that made her seem so vulnerable to him, something he couldn't quite bring himself to understand. It was a frightening prospect that chilled his blood within his veins – had one little lie broken her trust in him?

She shrugged slightly, taking a moment merely to take in the comfort his touch offered. "You found me," she said simply, closing her eyes as Eric's touch left her shoulder. Her nerves tingled as he slowly took a seat beside her on the steps, letting out a deep breath as he did so. "I just needed some air, so I came out here…"

"I tried calling you, but –"

"Yeah, I turned my cell off," Calleigh interrupted, shaking her head. Eric breathed in, closing his eyes as the soft scent of her vanilla shampoo reached his nose. It was all he could do to fight back the shiver that raced along his spine, carrying with it a parade of images that he couldn't help but associate with the sweet scent. But Calleigh was speaking again, and Eric forced himself back to the present, focusing on the uncharacteristic dullness in her voice. "I know I shouldn't have, but I just really didn't want to deal with anything for a few minutes…I just needed a bit of time to myself, I guess."

He couldn't resist reaching over, gently rubbing a few comforting circles over her back. "You okay?" he asked softly, though knowing already the answer to that question. In lieu of a verbal reply, Calleigh merely nodded. With a sigh, Eric brought his hands to his lap, clasping them together as he gingerly broached the subject that had become the proverbial elephant in the room. "Can I talk to you?" he asked quietly, his eyes trained toward the few people walking along the sidewalk below. "About earlier, I mean."

Calleigh bit her lip, the motion offsetting the would-be indifferent shrug she gave in response. "If you think you have to, now," she said, flinching slightly at her own words. In her mind, they'd sounded less cold, less angry. But out in the open, they were downright icy, and Calleigh closed her eyes, hearing them echo in her ears. "I'm sorry, Eric. I just…"

"I probably deserved that," Eric murmured, the slightest chuckle in his voice. Calleigh didn't reply, and Eric sighed, serious once more. "Look, Calleigh, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for lying to you earlier," he said, genuine regret in his words. "I just didn't know what else to do at the moment, and to be honest, after I said it, it was all I thought about for the rest of the afternoon. I kept thinking about everything you said to me back at the detention center, about us being a team now, and I – I'm sorry."

While Calleigh appreciated the apology, it still did little to assuage the feelings that had sprouted deep within her, feelings that had only worsened as the afternoon dragged on. She was torn between two sides, but in her mind, neither of them ended well – it was a tug-of-war that she wanted neither side to win. It was the second time since they'd been them that he had hidden something of this magnitude from her. Not only that, he'd looked her directly in the eye and lied to her. And if she said that the one single lie hadn't rocked her foundation, Calleigh herself would be lying. It had stuck with her the entire day, not even disappearing with his earlier apology.

She wouldn't say her trust in him was broken – it was much too strong for that. But in her experience with men, lies never meant anything good – they were always the beginning of the end. John had looked her in the eye and lied about evidence in a particular case that had pitted him on the opposite side of her father. Peter had lied about his relationship with Monica, letting her build up a sense of false hope only to walk away, leaving it deflated on the ground behind her. And Jake, in addition to lying about his whereabouts and what his was doing – which Calleigh had taught herself to look past because it was part of his job – he'd lied to her face about a few extra drinks, bringing her own reputation within the crime lab under scrutiny. And now, Eric…

Squeezing her eyes shut, Calleigh fought back the wave of nausea that threatened to overtake her. If there was anything of which she was absolutely sure, it was that Eric was completely different than all of the others – though she wouldn't admit it out loud, not this early, Calleigh wasn't sure she could handle losing Eric.

On the other side, Calleigh couldn't escape from the unsettled feeling that had set itself up within her. And that was what had really grown worse when he'd revealed the truth to her. Why was he talking to his father? Eric knew what he was capable of, and more than that, the man had barely offered Eric a second glance when the truth of his paternity had surfaced. Calleigh would even go so far to say that Sharova probably didn't care what happened to Eric at all.

And that was what scared her.

Eric was an extraordinary man. Though it had landed him in hot water so many times, Eric still managed to search for the best in almost everyone – he had a good heart, the best Calleigh knew of. And Calleigh knew that, with his father, despite having just met him not too long ago, Eric would give him the benefit of the doubt.

And Calleigh couldn't escape the sneaking suspicion that left the acid churning angrily in her empty stomach – in this case, Eric's good heart just might get him killed.

Her silence had drawn on for several minutes, leaving Eric even more unsettled than before. His fingers itched to reach out to her, but resolutely he kept them clasped together in his lap, opting instead for a quiet call of her name. "Calleigh?"

Calleigh lifted a hand, rubbing tiredly at her neck. "It's not going to make a difference though, is it?"

His brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"With – with whatever you're going to do," she continued in a whisper, her words barely audible to Eric. "You're sorry for lying, but it's not going to change what you've already decided…whatever that is. I know that wasn't just a social call this morning."

Eric sighed deeply, realizing that this ran deeper than he'd predicted. Calleigh knew something was wrong – knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. "Calleigh, I hate that I lied to you, but I don't – I don't want you getting involved in this."

Calleigh shook her head. "It doesn't work like that anymore, though," she persisted, her voice trembling just slightly. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself, speaking again only when she was certain that her voice was strong once more. "Secrets, lies…you can't keep it to yourself and pretend that it doesn't affect me – just like I can't do it anymore either. We're us, Eric."

"I wanted to protect you, Calleigh."

While the words melted her, Calleigh shook her head, refusing to give in to that warmth. "If it's something I need to be protected from, then you don't need to be getting mixed up in it either, Eric," she murmured, glancing to him briefly with her worried emerald eyes.

He shifted on the steps, angling his body slightly toward hers. "What else can I do, Cal? He's my father. I can't just ignore this."

Calleigh pursed her lips, biting back the thoughts that she desperately wanted to put forward. As far as she was concerned, Alex Sharova might be his father, but his dad was the man Calleigh had met years before at the Christmas dinner Eric had insisted she accompany him to, giving into his charming grin and his insistence that nobody should spend Christmas completely alone. Pavel Delko was everything that Alex Sharova was not – he was the man who had contributed so much to Eric's hard-working, compassionate character, and it wrenched her heart that Eric seemed willing to toss it all by the wayside for a man who'd given him nothing but his genetic makeup. "You barely know the man, Eric," she argued, fidgeting slightly with her fingers.

Eric shook his head. "That may be true, but he barely knows me either. And he still came forward with the truth to keep me from being deported."

"So now you feel like you owe him?" Calleigh asked, lifted her incredulous eyes to him, unwaveringly meeting his gaze for the first time without looking away after the briefest contact. "Eric, don't you remember? He wanted nothing to do with you!"

"And now things are different," Eric persisted, fighting the sudden impulse to stand and pace. There was something about the utter closeness to her that had abruptly begun to agitate him – part of him needed to put some space between them, but the rest of him couldn't stand to be any farther away from her. "I sought him out the first time. He insisted that he had no claim to me, that he owed me nothing. That hurt, Calleigh. It made me so angry, but it hurt too. I can't just ignore him and inflict that same pain on him."

"Do you even know that he would be hurt by that?"

"It doesn't matter, Calleigh. I'm not doing that." And with that, Eric did stand, taking a couple of steps away. His back to her, he rubbed a frustrated hand over his eyes, trying to ignore the beginnings of the headache he knew was coming. For a few seconds, he merely breathed, concentrating on the simple function to clear his mind and fight off the misplaced anger. As he turned back to face her, he was met with the same vulnerable Calleigh who had tugged at his heartstrings before, and with heavy steps he made his way back to her, reclaiming the same spot at her side. "I'm sorry…"

Calleigh nodded, biting hard at her lip. She didn't like this; it felt almost as though a rift were opening between them, growing wider by the second, and the last thing she wanted was to be apart from him. Inviting him into her life, into her bed had been so much more than that - he'd all but become a part of her. In some deep part of her heart, there resided a quiet voice telling her that maybe he was her life, but this early in the relationship? Calleigh couldn't let herself listen to it yet. The feelings, however, she couldn't silence. "I just…I have a really bad feeling about this," she admitted, her eyes to the ground below. "I mean, I don't even know what you're doing…"

He offered a smile, though whether or not Calleigh lifted her eyes to see it, Eric wasn't sure. "But I know what I'm doing, Calleigh," he said calmly, repeating the mantra he'd secretly convinced himself of at the beginning of this ordeal. "I know what I'm doing."

His words were the opposite of calming – in fact, they struck Calleigh much life a knife that had already twisted through her heart so many times before. More and more, she was finding out that there was never really a possibility of starting something new from scratch – the past, her past, would always color what she encountered in the present and in the future. And Calleigh knew she couldn't count the number of times she'd heard those exact words in the past. She scoffed quietly, giving an almost imperceptible shake of her head. "Yeah…"

With a sardonic smile, Eric leaned forward a bit, his eyes toward his clasped hands. "You don't believe me," he said matter-of-factly with just a second's glance toward her.

Calleigh hesitated. "It's not exactly that…" Eric didn't reply, forcing Calleigh either to continue herself, or let the conversation lapse into an awkward silence – the likes of which they hadn't really experienced as a couple. She shook her head, lifting a hand to brush her hair back from her troubled face. "You keep saying that to me, and maybe you do know what you're doing, or maybe you don't. I don't know." She shifted anxiously beside him, and Eric couldn't help but flinch as she crossed her arms protectively over her chest. "I just keep thinking…"

Eric reached over slowly, laying a gentle hand atop her knee. "Cal?"

Again she shook her head. Eyes closed, Calleigh let out a deep breath. Deep within the skeptical part of her mind, she knew she should've seen this coming. The happiness never lasted, never. And yet, with Eric, she'd tried to move past that belief; she'd held tightly to the hope that he was different, to his unspoken promise that he wouldn't hurt her.

But now she sat beside him, feeling the ghostly whispers of feelings that hadn't visited her for so long. There was no question; she'd spent far too much time in the past alone in her cold bed with those same feelings - she knew them all too intimately. Fear, apprehension, anxiety…the list went on and on, and try as she might, Calleigh couldn't escape them now any better than she'd been able to before.

Calleigh swallowed hard, feeling his questioning gaze upon her. She kept her own eyes resolutely averted, though – she didn't want to see the look in his dark eyes as the words spilled from her lips. "It's just that…before something happened, before he left every time…" She paused, glancing skyward as though searching for strength. "That's what Jake always used to tell me."

Her utterance of the other man's name had Eric tensing beside her, unable to fight off the indignance that bubbled up within him. Was she really comparing him to Jake? Was that what this was all about anyway – Jake Berkeley? Eric scoffed, crossing his own arms across his chest. "I think this is more than a bit different," he replied coolly, gazing off into the distance.

Recognizing her mistake, Calleigh shook her head quickly. "That's not what I meant, Eric. I'm not comparing you…"

"Well, that's exactly what it sounds like. I lied to protect you, but it makes me no better than a man who would throw you away just for the chance to pretend to be somebody else for a few months." His words were harsh even to Eric's ears, but when it came down to it, there was a bitterness that he still held toward Jake - a bitterness that he wasn't sure he'd ever really get over.

"That's not fair, Eric," Calleigh hissed, doing all she could to keep from raising her voice. "But okay, you want to know something? This is reminding me of him," she continued, noticing the flicker in Eric's eyes before he trained them away from her. "But not like that. I only brought him up because - because every lie he told me and every secret he kept brought us closer and closer to the end, and I don't want that for us!" Calleigh blurted, finally allowing the deepest of her fears to surface from the complicated depths of her mind. "You don't know how many times Jake just knew what he was doing, but don't you think that if he really knew what he was doing, he wouldn't have ended up half-dead as often as he did? Broken bones, bullets, knives – all of it because what he thought he knew what he was doing went terribly wrong! He almost died so many times for that stupid undercover gig he loved so much, and I – I can't just sit by and watch and worry that the same thing is going to happen to you because I – " Catching herself, Calleigh stopped abruptly, shaking her head as she looked to the ground once more.

"That has nothing to do with me," Eric argued, finding himself unable to place the emotion that had bubbled up within him. What had Calleigh stopped herself from saying? With Calleigh in moments like this, Eric could never be sure. "I'm not Jake. And I'm not working undercover with gangs and drug lords and whatever. It's just my father."

Biting her lip, Calleigh shook her head again. "I wish I could say that made me feel at all better," she murmured. Swallowing hard, she silently cursed herself for the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. "I've always trusted you, okay? You know that, Eric. But I don't trust Sharova. I just…don't. And I – I really do have a bad feeling about all this. If something were to happen to you…"

Her unfinished thought struck him to the core, and Eric sighed deeply, truly finding himself caught between a rock and a hard place. "Calleigh, I have to do this. And I want you as far away from it as you can be." Reaching out to her, he took her hand in his, gently lacing their fingers together. "I'm sorry. I just…I really need you to trust me on this."

"I don't know if I can this time, Eric," Calleigh admitted quietly, shivering slightly as she felt his lips against her knuckle. She didn't even bother to remind him that they were right in public, just steps away from the crime lab itself - at this point, all of that seemed trivial. "I can't – you won't tell me anything, and I can't just make a blind leap like that."

Closing his eyes, Eric slowly pressed his lips against each of Calleigh's knuckles, dusting them with soft kisses just as he had the first. His heart clenched at her words – he knew he was asking a lot of her, but it still stung deeply that she might not be able to grant him that trust. But then again, he had to place himself in her position – she was asking him for something he couldn't give as well.

And more than that, she was fearing that it was the end of them – the end which Eric had decided in his own heart wouldn't occur until the end of time. He was hers.

But right now, he couldn't be simply hers. Even with the suspicion that maybe she was right lurking within his mind, Eric couldn't just let go of what he needed to do. But it all came back to what was best for Calleigh. She would not end up on the wrong side of the law with him, if he had any say in the matter whatsoever.

And, if she was right about Sharova, it was all the more reason to keep her in the dark. It would be one thing for everything to go wrong and for Eric to end up losing his own life, but he would never forgive himself if Calleigh found herself in the middle of that same fate.

If it meant breaking her trust to keep her safe and sound, then there was no question as to what Eric would do, every single time.

With a deep, repentant sigh, Eric released her hand and slowly rose to his feet, taking a moment to press one soft, lingering kiss into her hair as he stood. One more time, he allowed her intoxicating scent to wash over him, praying that it would be enough to carry him through to the end of this – the end, where hopefully she would be waiting for him.

Before he could begin the long trek away from her though, her tiny fingers wrapped quickly around his wrist, sending a wave of sparks through his body. Slowly, she tilted her head up toward him, and Eric found himself stunned to see that the beautiful emeralds were glassy, the edges rimmed with red, a sight that shattered Eric's heart into tiny, jagged shards. Her tongue flicked over her parched lips in an attempt to moisten them, and when she spoke, her words escaped in a raspy whisper, her emotional vulnerability all but a completely open book to him – he'd never expected any of this to affect her so deeply. "Don't walk away from me," she pleaded quietly, slowly tracing her thumb over the pulse in his wrist. "Don't do this…whatever it is…please."

It took everything he had to keep his face passive, to look into her open eyes and see the depth of the pain he was causing her, the inexplicable fear for him she held because of a bad feeling that wouldn't go away, and force himself to believe that it too was for the best. Closing his eyes, he gently pulled Calleigh's fingers from his wrist, indulging in a soft squeeze of her hand before letting go completely. And though it nearly killed him, Eric tore his eyes away from hers, murmuring the repeated apology that he was sure by now was nothing but two very empty words.

"I'm sorry."

And with that, Eric let out a deep breath and slowly began the long trek down the steps, walking away without a single look back – as much as his resolve was cracking, looking back even once would be his final demise. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself from going back to her, from telling her everything, just like he'd wanted to in the very beginning.

But he couldn't do that. He would not put Calleigh's life or her integrity on the line, and he sure wouldn't let her do it for him.

For now, the deception was necessary.

Eric could only hope and pray that it didn't shatter her trust in him completely.