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"Dad?"
Cal, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, looked up from reading the latest case report to see Emily standing in front of him. She was dressed for bed, her hands shoved into the pockets of her robe. In the living room, outside of the lamp he was working under, she was backlit by the red and green lights on the Christmas tree behind her.
"Hey. What's up?"
Emily shrugged and pushed back a fall of hair. "Not much."
He frowned at her, then checked his watch. One-thirty. Later than he thought. "It's really late, love, you should be asleep by now."
"So should you."
He pointed down at the sheaf of paper on his lap. "Got a lot of work to catch up on."
"It's Christmastime, Dad, I think those reports could wait for a few days."
He raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying I should slack off?"
She grinned. "For tonight, maybe." She glanced down a moment, and when she looked up again, her expression had sobered. She gestured at the sofa. "Hey, can I--can I sit with you awhile?"
Something in her voice sounded odd, setting off a bell. It wasn't like Em to be so--hesitant? subdued? like this, he thought. But she'd been subtly off since the Christmas party a couple of days ago, actually, downcast and brooding in off-guarded moments. He quickly scanned her features, her shadowed eyes--but he wasn't about to pry, not until she broached it first.
"Sure." He patted the space beside him.
Emily nodded, sat down and curled up. "Thanks."
"You all right, Em?"
"Yeah. I just couldn't sleep." She reached over, pulled a knitted afghan over her, and leaned against him.
He wrapped an arm around her and she nestled into the crook of his shoulder, the way she used to when she'd been smaller. After another fifteen minutes of reading his sight blurred; it really was too late to be working now. He set aside the report he was annotating, removed his glasses and turned off the table lamp, leaving only the Christmas lights on the tree to illuminate the room.
Cal leaned his cheek on her hair, watched the light glint off the gifts wrapped in shining foil paper under the tree. Times like this made leveraging the company worth it, he mused, to have Em here, and he was bloody well going to enjoy it while he can. These moments with her were just too few and far between anymore. She was no longer the baby who slept on his chest on lazy Sunday afternoons, or the laughing little girl swinging on the monkey bars, ready to fall into his waiting arms. Em was a teenager, with her own expanding life. In a couple of years she'd be ready to leave the nest, head off to college, leave her old dad to rattle around the house--
When had he become such a sentimental sop, he wondered. Probably the first time he'd held her, minutes after she was born. No, before then, when he and Zoe found out they were having a little girl. He'd been wrapped around Em's little finger ever since.
She knew it, too. Cal grinned to himself at that.
Well, he was allowed a bit of indulgence in memory, wasn't he? Though if he weren't careful he'd start jumping ahead, to her wedding maybe, to whichever boyfriend actually passed muster with him. He'd start to see himself walk her down the aisle, give her away, dance with her at the reception. Now there was a thought. But that had better not happen for another ten years, at least--
"Were you really afraid when those bombs started falling? Really?"
So this was it. Cal winced at the hurt and betrayal in her voice.
"The truth, Dad. Please."
Cal sighed inwardly. Em didn't know about the dark side of his past. Not MI-6, not Belfast, not Sarajevo. Gillian knew, and Zoe knew, and they'd all tried their best to keep it from her. But all that protection had shattered in the shock waves of explosions overhead; she'd seen him in the Afghan dugout, in the midst of dust and chaos and exhilaration.
He'd said he'd been scared too, that moment in his study. To be honest he hadn't thought about it; not until later that evening, while watching her dance at the Christmas party with Dick. (Rick. Funny, Dad.) Only then had he realized he might not have come back at all.
He'd shivered outright for a moment, then pushed it away. Everything had turned out and it wouldn't do to dwell on it. Obviously those same thoughts had weighed on Em while she was waiting for him to come home, but she'd seemed okay after their talk in the study. She'd seemed okay...
And she wasn't. He'd been wrong. Oh, Em, he thought, stricken, and he tightened his arm around her. Ah, darling. He owed her a real answer this time.
"No, I wasn't. Not while I was there," Cal said finally, and he felt her stiffen. "I'm sorry, love," he added. "You don't know how I wish it were different for you."
After a minute, Emily nodded against his shoulder. "That's okay," she said quietly. "I know you had to be there. And I know you'll do it again, and it's not like I can change anything. I mean, an adrenaline junkie is part of who you are, right?"
He'd forced her to face that darkness before she was ready. Cal felt another stab of guilt at the heavy--the grown-up--acceptance in her words. He was grateful she couldn't see his face at the moment.
"But can you at least give me a heads-up next time? Just so there's one less lie you have to tell me when you go save the world again?"
One adult to another, now. Cal swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. "I'll try," he said, "but I can't promise. That's the best I can do, darling."
"I believe you." Emily burrowed in tightly, and though he couldn't see her face, he felt her relax against him. "Thank you for being honest with me."
The thought of not returning flooded back in full force, and all the things he could have missed took on a deeper meaning. Cal squeezed his eyes shut and kissed the top of her head. "Love you, Em."
She nodded. "I know. Love you too."
They fell silent; within minutes she was yawning. "I'm going to bed now," she said. "So should you."
"In a bit."
"Just don't stay up too much longer, okay?" She rose and grinned at him sleepily, her subtle tension eased. "Night, Dad."
"Night, love."
She turned to leave and disappeared upstairs, with a lighter step than she had earlier. After he heard her door close, Cal stared at the muted lights on the tree, the tree which had witnessed Em grow over the years too. In the space of half an hour his trusting little girl had slipped forever from his grasp. The young woman in her place had begun to see him for who he was. She really had left her old dad behind her, in more ways than one.
Cal shook his head at himself. He was past sentimental now, heading straight into maudlin. It was too bloody late for that mush. What was done, was done; baby, girl or woman, she was still his Em, he was still her Dad--warts and all--and they would manage. So he heaved himself off the sofa and headed upstairs, leaving only the tree to ponder in the silence.