Work Text:
1.
If the rain eases there'll be a motorcade through here later. Gillian scans the street then walks toward Lightman who's coaching the police escort. There's a bright trace of color in the sky behind him.
There was a time early on when she'd have said nothing, expecting a flicker of contempt on his mobile face. She's not wary of him any more - at least not in that way and not by daylight.
"A rainbow," she says, gesturing to it.
He glances at her quickly but doesn't turn to look.
"Any unicorns?" he asks.
She smiles. "Time to move," she says.
"Dolphins?" He smiles too, laughing at her. His smile is crooked but she can feel the strain in him ease as he meets her eyes. Some moments that's all she can think to want, that tiny release of tension. Those times she needs to remind herself she has a job to do and a whole life that's not his.
"They need us back at the Institute," she says, before walking towards the car.
He looks over his shoulder and says loudly, "What about fairy folk?"
She keeps walking.
2.
Gillian is giving a lecture to a group of mall security staff; a high paying job. Lightman lingers outside the glass door until she nods him inside. He sits at the back and watches her.
When everyone else is gone, Lightman helps gather empty glasses and the sweet wrappers left on the tables. In the silence he says to her, "You quite liked that fella; second table, third from the left. I saw that."
She sighs. "Cal."
He says, "I saw it all. You did a neck thing," he waves his hand around his neck, "and your face was practically a flashing beacon. I'm surprised he didn't notice."
She sets down the empty water jug, passes her hand across her brow and says, "Cal. You can't do this. We can't work together and have you do this. You can't read me all the time; it's exhausting."
He doesn't laugh as he says, "Funny, that's just what my ex-wife said."
3.
Everyone around him is scared of him; scared of being read by him. As if he, Cal Lightman, was some divine visionary with the power to bring forth unwilling confessions during the two second glance where he's handed a muffin.
Her power is that she is not scared of him. He's seen the breakdown of her marriage; he's seen it all and she has nothing to hide.
She makes eye contact with him, noticing him noticing the force behind her smile; the lie when she says, "Everything is fine."
Despite everything, she thinks maybe she wants to be read, just tonight, just this one time.
Lightman says nothing.
4.
It's dark out. She's not surprised by the knock at her door. There's parts of him she knows almost as well as she knows herself. She's chooses not to analyze whether she wants to be the one he calls when there's no one else.
He says, "The light was on, love." Which is true, but she says nothing and he finishes, "I wanted to see you."
He's smoking; he used to smoke all the time. He's not drunk, yet. She leaves him on the doorstep while she finds tumblers and an open bottle of red.
When she sits the step is cold through her skirt. She hands him a glass. Tonight he's all coiled tension and cigarette smoke and she leans against him to look at the sky.
She turns and he's already looking at her.
5.
It's still dark out. The bottle of wine is empty, the second one too. There's a litter of cigarettes in her garden which will annoy her in the morning.
She finds her fingers tracing the tattoo on his forearm while his hand cups the side of her face. She wants to kiss him. Instead she says, fingers trailing across inked skin, "Where did this come from?"
Lightman drinks the rest of the wine in his glass and says, "Love, I don't tell bad stories to good girls."