Archive of Our Own

They’d been on the stake out – Reynolds’s term not his -- a little over four hours. Maybe this one of Foster’s actually was just a nice guy. Sod that, he was a wanker, Cal could smell it on him. But four hours. He could admit he was bored. Time to rattle a few cages. “Admit it, you like this just a little bit more than you should.”

“Like what? Sitting in a car with you listening to those gears twist inside your head.”

Cal winked at Reynolds. “Well that. But also working with us. Being just a tad bit out of big brother’s reach. Getting to set your own rules.”

Reynolds laughed. Cal decided he quite liked the sound of it. “Lightman, working for you is like herding cats. If I have to make up my own rules, it’s to save your ass.”

Cal added his own laugh to the choir. “Ha, you just said you work for me.”

Reynolds shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of his coffee. “Why fight the inevitable.”

Cal cocked his head and studied Reynolds’s face. “I’m sort of disappointed. You broke much earlier than I thought you would.”

Reynolds looked right back at him, not afraid of what Cal might be seeing. “Sorry to mess with your schedule. I’ve never been predictable.”

“That’s why you and I are going to do great things together, Agent Reynolds.”

“You do realize, when you say things like that, you’re just a bit creepy?”

Cal frowned. “Only a bit? I was going for full-on egomaniacal mastermind.”

“Well, I would say you were kidding if we weren’t sitting here numbing our asses waiting to see if Dr. Foster’s new man has something to hide.”

Ooh, now they were getting somewhere. “Why’d you agree to come along?”

“The FBI likes to keep their assets safe. And you tend to get in a lot of trouble when left to your own devices.”

“That’s not it. You like it. You like the danger, the unpredictability.”

Reynolds laughed again. “Of sitting with you in a car?”

“Don’t mock me, Agent. I could totally cut you with my …” Cal looked around for a weapon. He pulled out the plastic straw from his own coffee, “swizzle stick,” he finished.

Reynolds cocked an eyebrow. “You could try, but I have a feeling I’d win that fight.”

“Oy, look, he’s leaving. Guess we’ll never know,” Cal said, starting the car.

“Keep telling yourself that Lightman. Keep telling yourself that.”

~*~*~*~*~

Cal was never going to trust shrinks or psychologists, not after what they had done to his mum. Okay, so they didn’t actually kill her, but they let her out, let her go, when she was obviously still sick, still suicidal. That made his co-dependant relationship with Foster all the more cocked up, especially given how the events played out today. Foster – who had been lying to him from the beginning. Not the time to think about that. He didn’t even move from where he had planted himself on the kitchen island when he heard the key in the door.

Ben entered like he was expecting a crime scene. Not that he was that far off the mark. “You’re drunk.”

Cal smiled and offered the bottle of whiskey to Ben. “Keen observation skills there, Agent Reynolds.”

Ben shook his head and leaned against the counter next to Cal. “Been a while since you called me that outside of work. Where’s Emily? I would have thought you’d want her with you after what happened.”

Cal smiled bitterly. “I do, but for her sake I left her with her mum. I’m not fit company right now.”

“So you called me?”

“You’ve seen me at my worst. I figured you could take it.”

“That’s true. You planning on finishing that bottle?”

“You worried about me, Ben?” Cal asked nudging Ben with his shoulder.

“I’m worried you’re gonna fall off that counter. Why don’t we move this into the living room.”

Cal hopped down and patted Ben’s arm. “You are a smart one.”

“Two compliments in the span of 30 seconds. You really are drunk. Do you want to talk about it?”

Cal shook his head and sat down on the couch. “No.”

“Okay.” That’s one of the things Cal liked best about Ben. He didn’t push when he didn’t need to. Maybe it was time to share some truths with him. “You asked me once why I picked you. What I saw in you that made me make a deal with the devil, or as you like to call it, the FBI.”

“And you’ve never given me an answer. Even after all this time.”

“You’re damaged.”

Ben snorted. “That’s your answer? I’m damaged. Well, I can see why you didn’t want to share.”

Cal shoved at him. Apparently, he was extra handsy when he was drunk. Or maybe it was just Ben who brought that out in him. “Don’t be a plonker about it. I’m damaged. Everyone at Lightman is damaged. My ex-wife said I should have named the place the Island of Misfit Toys instead of the Lightman Group.”

Ben kicked his feet up onto the coffee table and turned to look at Cal. “Okay. Torres and Loker I can see. But Foster?”

“Foster’s the worst. She needs to save people.” Cal said the words with as much disdain as his drunken self could muster.

Ben laughed, at the tone, at the words, Cal was unsure. The only thing he was sure of at the moment was that he still liked the sound of Ben’s laughter. It ranked right up there with Emily’s. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Cal nodded and took another swig from the bottle in his hand. “It is when you do it so you don’t have to save yourself.”

Ben took the bottle away and set it down on the coffee table. “Still, not seeing your point.”

Cal shook his head. “What do you know about my mum?”

Ben had been around long enough that Cal’s random topic changes didn’t phase him anymore. Cal liked that. “She killed herself and that drove you to create your own science to try to figure out why.”

That was more than most people knew or understood. “Not why, exactly. I knew why, but I needed to know how everyone could have missed the signs.”

“And when you say everyone, you mean you. Even though you were just a kid at the time.”

If Cal laid his head on Ben’s shoulder, neither of them were going to mention it. “And you wonder why I keep you around.”

“Again, not following you, pal.”

“You’re damaged. But you don’t apologize for it. You own it. I admire that.”

Ben carefully lifted Cal’s head off his shoulder so he could look him in the eye.“You don’t admire anyone.”

Cal mulled Ben’s words over. “That is true. But I do admire your ability to move forward. To not be stuck in the past. You’ve learned to forgive yourself. Even after your addiction, even after Scotty.”

“What? And you can’t move forward?”

“No, somehow the horrors of my past keep coming back to haunt me.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“No, how do you see it Dr. Reynolds?”

That title earned an eye roll from Ben.

“You’ve got a past, we all do, but you help people. You use what you learned to make things better, if not for yourself, then for other people. And you’ve got Emily. You can’t be doing it all wrong with a kid as great as her.”

Well that he could agree with. Emily was extraordinary and he wasn’t giving Zoe all the credit for that. “She is pretty remarkable, isn’t she?” Cal yawned, the day and the booze were quickly catching up with him.

“I’ll be right back.” He felt more than saw Ben get up off the couch.

Cal took advantage and stretched out. He was almost asleep when he felt Ben’s hand on his shoulder. “Here, take these.”

“You’re a good man, Agent Reynolds.” Cal took the pills and glass of water, downing both in quick succession. He felt a blanket being carefully laid across his body. He thrust the empty glass in Ben’s general direction.

Ben took the glass and chuckled. You want me to stay?”

Cal opened his eyes and looked at Ben. “I always want you to stay.”

Ben nodded and sat down in the chair next to the couch. “You gonna remember this conversation in the morning?”

Cal smiled wide and shook his head. “Not a word of it.”

Ben smiled back. “You know I can tell when you're lying don't you?”

Touché, Ben. Touché, was Cal's last thought.

~*~*~*~*~

Watching people lie for a living and calling them on it was a perverse sort of thrill. Cal would be the first to admit that. Well, he would be, but he was pretty sure that Torres or Loker would beat him to it. No, it would probably be his darling Emily --who had too much of her mother and just enough of him inside of her to make her a danger of a whole different sort. Not that he would change one little bit of the woman she was becoming.

“Why did you lie?”

Cal looked up from his computer screen and smiled. Emily had only been gone for a week, but it felt like a whole lot longer. “Good to see you too, daughter of mine. How was Chicago? Your mum?”

Emily flopped down in the chair opposite him. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Cal had to smile. His girl had the same tenacity of her mum. “I’m not sure what the subject is, love. You just burst in here after being gone and accused me of lying.” And really that was too close to a daily ritual for him to be sure just what he’d done this time specifically.

Emily just stared at him, sizing him up. Cal was pretty sure the prideful grin on his face wasn’t what she was looking for, if the sigh and the eye roll were anything to go by.

“You said Ben didn’t want to come back, but that’s not true.”

And of course, it couldn’t be an easy one. Not with his girl. He’d be even more proud if he didn’t so want to not be having this conversation with her. Or anyone for that matter. “Em, stay out of it.”

Emily stood up and walked around to the back of Cal’s chair and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “I can’t Dad. And you wouldn’t want me to.”

Dirty pool, that was. “Em.”

Emily just hugged him tighter. “No, you get to call everyone else out on their lies, so it’s my duty as your daughter to do the same to you.”

Yep, perverse little thrill, right there.

Cal kissed Emily's fingers and stood up and leaned back against the desk to face her. “As much as I admire your logic there, love. It’s none of your business.”

Emily rolled her eyes. Cal took it back, he wished she had a little less cheek and bit more in the area of self-preservation. “You’re the one who severed the ties with the FBI with no explanation.”

He needed a drink for this. So he stalked across the room and made himself one. He took a large sip. “I really didn’t think one was needed. I got their agent shot.”

Emily had settled in his office chair and was peering at him over his desk like she was the parent instead of him. “No, you got Ben shot. And you didn’t even go to see him once we found out he was going to be okay.”

Well that wasn’t true. Not that he was going to share that fact with Emily or anyone. Cal flopped down in the first chair that Emily had vacated and plunked his legs up on his desk. “Okay’s a relative term.” Limited mobility in his arm, 30% loss of lung capacity, riding a desk for the rest of his career if he was lucky.

Emily frowned, real disappointment lighting her face. “So what? He’s somehow damaged now, so he’s no good to you? That’s not who you are Dad.”

Bloody hell, his girl was too smart for her own good. “Stay out of it Em.”

Emily shook her head. “You need him. We all need him. Someone’s got to keep you in line.”

And Christ, if that wasn’t true. But he’d leave it alone. He let Zoe go. He’d let Emily go when it was time. He would do this because Ben didn’t need him. Not after what had happened. “Leave it alone, Em. He’s better off.” The without me remained unsaid.

Emily must have read something on his face because she got up and walked over to him and planted a kiss on his forehead. “This isn’t over Dad.”

And how Cal wished that was true.