Emily woke up early. She told her dad not to go into work. She got up and decided to call Gillian to find out what really happened between them last night
"Hello?"
"Hi Gillian it's Emily"
"Hey what's up?"
"I was just wondering what happened between you and dad. He came in last night and he was acting all weird, he came in and hugged me so tight that it was like he was going to fall. I have never seem him like that before so what happened?"
"I...i told him that i didn't want to be friends with him when he is acting this way."
"Gillian he didn't mean to do that. He said he was sorry"
"I know but i just have a feeling he is going to do it again and i don't wanna be on the other end of it"
"Gillian he is in a really bad way. I don't know what's happening with him but he told me he was scared. He said he didn't know what was happening to him. What do you think he means by that?"
"Emily...
There was a knock at the door
"Gillian?"
"Sorry Em I've got to i have an important meeting to go to i will call you later okay?"
"Okay"
When she hung up the phone Emily decided to get her dad up. She went to his room and tried the door. It was locked again.
"DAD?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Yeah i'm fine"
"Why is the door locked?"
"I just wanted to be on my own. I just needed time to think without anyone interrupting me. Is that okay?"
"Yeah i'm just worried that's all"
"Well you don't have to be Em"
"Well i'm going to go make you some tea"
"That would be lovely Em, thank you"
Cal had been up all night with pain in his back. When he woke up more feathers and began to come out. He spent half the night pulling most of them out. He surprised Emily didn't hear him. He went to the bathroom to look at his back the blood was all over and some of it was even old blood. He realized he needed Foster to help clean him up. He went to reach for his phone to dial her number when he realized what he was doing and put the phone down. He sat on the edge of the bed for about five minutes before heading down stairs to see Emily
"Hey"
"Morning darling"
"Made you tea"
"Thanks"
"You feeling better?"
"Yeah much"
"Dad i phoned Gillian"
"You did what?"
"I phoned her to find out what happened between you two"
"What did she say?"
"She told me that she didn't want to be friends if you were going to act the way you did."
"Did she say anything else?"
"Yeah she said that she didn't want to be on the other end of your temper"
"She said that?"
"Yeah. You okay?"
"If i'm honest Em. No i'm not"
He went back to his room and Emily decided to follow him
"Dad. Dad don't walk away from me. Don't walk from this. If you do you are walking away from Gillian you are giving up on ever rebuilding your friendship with her"
"Well maybe i'm better off on my own"
"No dad your not. You need someone. You need Gillian and she needs you"
"No she doesn't besides the last time i got close to someone i lost them"
"What?"
"Nothing forget i said that"
"No dad i have had ENOUGH of you telling me what to do. I want to know what you and Gillian are hiding from me, i want to more about you but you never seem to want to let me in. I am your daughter for crying out loud please dad please just let me in".
Cal didn't realize how much he had been keeping from his daughter. He decided to tell her as much as he could
"Okay darling. When i was younger i met this girl. She was smart, funny and she was beautiful. She taught me how to love."
"What happened?"
"I... i had to go away. I left her behind."
"Why? i mean if she taught you how to love why would you let someone like that go?"
"I just had to love, I knew i could never give her what she wanted. The thing is Em when you love someone you have to let them go"
"You've never told me this before"
"Well when i was with your mum i didn't want to tell you in case it slipped out. We would have been fighting even more"
"I suppose so. Did you ever think about finding her?"
"All the time"
"Then why haven't you?"
"I gave up"
"Why?"
"She had probably moved on to someone else and any way i had you to think about"
"So you gave up looking for the one girl you truly loved for me?"
"Yeah you were the most important girl in my life you still are"
"Your the most important man in my life dad"
They gave each other a hug. However back at the office Torres and Loker were still looking over the video footage and any others they could find to help understand why their bosses were fighting
"Well how about here?"
"What are we looking at?"
"See here on Lightman's face. It's pain. He is in pain"
"Emotional or physical?"
"I'd say both"
"Well every time I've seen him fight with Foster i have never seen pain on his face and I've been here longer than you"
"So something Foster said must have caused him emotional pain. I heard her on the phone to Emily and she said that they had a fight last night"
"You listened in on a private conversation?"
"Well i was going to see Foster because she was late for the meeting this morning and i happened to hear hear the conversation"
"So what happened?"
"She told Lightman that she didn't want anything to do with him when he was acting the way he did."
"Why would that cause him emotional and physical pain."
"Maybe that caused him the emotional side but something else is causing the physical?"
"Like what?"
"Well he had a bad back didn't he?"
"Yeah but that should have cleared up by now"
"Well then why is he pain?"
"Don't know"
"There is something that Lightman and Foster are not telling us"
"Why do you think Foster knows?"
"Remember her words fro their first argument? I will tell everyone your secret? She knows and we need to find out what it is"
"Well she is still in that meeting let's go and have peek in her office"
"Are you crazy if we get caught Lightman will fire us"
"Well Lightman isn't coming in for a few days and i can delete the video footage off the cameras so i think we are pretty safe"
Torres then smiled at him and got up off her chair to join him. They looked around to see if Foster was coming their way before entering her office and shut the door
"Dad do you want more tea?"
"Yes please darling it seems to helping my back"
"I thought that was long gone?"
"No it came back i must have twinged it again"
"Well do you want me to take a look?"
"No ta darling it will be fine"
"Dad let me look"
"I said no Emily!"
Emily jumped back away from him and just starred at him with fear over her face
"I'm sorry Em i didn't mean to..."
Emily turned around and ran towards her bedroom. Cal followed her he tried the door but it was locked
"Emily? Em open the door. Please. I didn't mean to shout at you i just don't know what came over me. Please Em"
All he could hear was her crying into her pillow. He leaned back against her door and fell to the floor slowly. He placed his head back against the door to listen to her. He had made his daughter cry. He got up and went into his bedroom he sat on the end of the bed and tears began to roll down his cheeks. He wiped them and then picked up his phone. He typed in Gillian's number. He paused for a moment before pressing call.
"Hi this is Gillian Foster i'm available to come to the phone but leave a message and i will get back to you as soon as i can"
"Hi Foster it's me. I know i shouldn't be calling you but i had no one else. I'm sorry about the other night but your right. I don't like this me either. I shouted at Emily and she is now crying into her pillow. I made my own daughter cry Gill. I hate myself for it. I need you Gill. I need you to help me please call me when you get the chance. Thanks love"
Torres and Loker had been looking around Foster's office for a while now and they couldn't find anything
"Find anything?"
"No you?"
"No"
"There must be something. Think if you were Foster where would you keep something so important that you wouldn't even want Cal Lightman to find it"
"I would lock it away somewhere"
"Remember their fight Lightman mentioned something that was locked in a drawer in her desk"
"Torres you are brilliant"
"Took you that long to realize it huh?"
"Do you know how to pick a lock?"
"Do you even have to ask. Move over. Watch and learn"
After a minute Torres got the drawer open. They started to search though the desk. Loker picked up an envelope
"What's this?"
"Well open it and see"
"What?"
"What?"
"There is a feather in here"
"A feather?"
"Yeah. Why would she keep a feather in her desk?"
"Don't know but it must be important. Do you think we could sneak it out?"
"What if she notices?"
"Don't worry what i have planned won't take more than an hour tops besides she will be in that meeting for at least another two hours"
"Fine let's do it"
Emily came out of her bedroom and went to her dad's door. She knocked hoping he would answer
"Dad?"
"Em?"
"Yeah it's me can i come in?"
"Yeah the door's open"
"Hey"
"Hey"
"Em i'm sorry i shouldn't have done what i did"
"It's okay. Have you been crying?"
"Um yeah i have"
"I'm sorry"
"No it wasn't you darling. I'm crying because of what i did"
"Dad it's okay"
"No it isn't. I shouldn't have shouted at you. You were trying to help me and i shouldn't have shouted at you i shouldn't be shouting at you at all really.You are my daughter Em and i shouldn't talk to you like that. I'm really sorry"
"I forgive you dad i will always forgive you"
"Thanks darling"
At that moment they heard the door open and in came Gillian
"Cal?"
"Gillian?"
"Where are you?"
"In the bedroom"
"Hey"
"Hey. What are you doing here?"
"I got your call i just wanted to see if you were okay"
"I'm fine but didn't you have an important business meeting?"
"Yeah i did but as soon as i got your call i canceled it"
"But they were important clients. We could lose a lot of money over this deal"
"You are more important than any clients right now"
Emily could tell they wanted to be alone so tried to think of any excuse to get out
"I think i left the kettle on dad so i will go and make you that tea i promised"
"That would be great thanks darling"
"Gillian?"
"Yes please Em thank you"
Emily quickly left the room. Cal was just sitting on the bed starring at Gillian trying to figure her out
"I thought you said you didn't want anymore to do with me?"
"Yes i did but that was before the phone call. Before i realized that you need me"
"Yes i do"
"Well tell me what do you need me for?"
"I need you to help me clean up my back again"
"It's bleeding again?"
"Yeah pretty bad this time"
"Well let's get into the bathroom and i'll take a look"
They got up and went into the bathroom. Cal then took his shirt off and Gillian noticed just exactly how bad it was
"Cal why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"I didn't want you to worry i mean you already had an important meeting coming up i didn't want to give you more stress"
"You should have told me. I don't care about stress or meetings right now. I care about you"
Gillian then proceeded to clean up Cal's back. He had layers of blood she could tell he hadn't been able to clean it himself he wasn't joking when he said he needed her. She then noticed that little black bumps had formed
"What are these?"
"What?"
"These little black bumps? They weren't here last time"
"There're probably nothing. Blood clots probably"
"Yeah they could be but i feel like i could just pull them out"
"You wouldn't would you?"
"No of coarse not. It would probably hurt like hell"
"Yeah maybe"
"Almost done"
Gillian finished cleaning him up and then rinsed the cloth out in the sink so Emily wouldn't see
"So tell me about what happened with you and Emily"
"I told her about my back pain she wanted to take a look but i screamed at her not too then she ran of to her room and started crying"
"You cried too didn't you?"
"How did you know?
"I can tell with you"
"That's funny i have more trouble reading you than anyone else"
They both just sat and starred into each other eyes. They didn't even notice that they were leaning in. There lips were just about to touch when Emily knocked on the door
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"You tea is ready and so is Gillian's"
Okay we'll be down in a minute"
"Okay i'll keep it warm"
"We should get downstairs Em will be wondering where we are"
"Yeah"
Torres just finished her test when Loker walked in
"Hey hows it going?"
"Good"
"What's wrong?"
"It just the machine can't seem to find an feather that matches this one"
"What? Did you double check?
"Yeah i did"
"So?"
"That means it's not a normal feather. Foster knows where it came from so she must know it's not normal"
"What is so important about a feather though i mean why keep it?"
"Well according to this Foster has had it since she was eighteen"
"How do you know"
"Her fingerprints are all over it. It looks like she has been holding everyday since she got it"
"Where did she get it from?"
"Well there is another set of fingerprints on it. I put them through but they don't match anyone's"
"How is that possible?"
"I don't know but something weird is going on and i want to know what"
"So do i"
"Well then i think we need to dig deeper a lot deeper"
"What do we do"
"We need to dig into their pasts. Both of their pasts. It has to be something that links them together.
"What?"
"I don't know but i think we should find out"
"Hello?"
"Hi Gillian it's Emily"
"Hey what's up?"
"I was just wondering what happened between you and dad. He came in last night and he was acting all weird, he came in and hugged me so tight that it was like he was going to fall. I have never seem him like that before so what happened?"
"I...i told him that i didn't want to be friends with him when he is acting this way."
"Gillian he didn't mean to do that. He said he was sorry"
"I know but i just have a feeling he is going to do it again and i don't wanna be on the other end of it"
"Gillian he is in a really bad way. I don't know what's happening with him but he told me he was scared. He said he didn't know what was happening to him. What do you think he means by that?"
"Emily...
There was a knock at the door
"Gillian?"
"Sorry Em I've got to i have an important meeting to go to i will call you later okay?"
"Okay"
When she hung up the phone Emily decided to get her dad up. She went to his room and tried the door. It was locked again.
"DAD?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Yeah i'm fine"
"Why is the door locked?"
"I just wanted to be on my own. I just needed time to think without anyone interrupting me. Is that okay?"
"Yeah i'm just worried that's all"
"Well you don't have to be Em"
"Well i'm going to go make you some tea"
"That would be lovely Em, thank you"
Cal had been up all night with pain in his back. When he woke up more feathers and began to come out. He spent half the night pulling most of them out. He surprised Emily didn't hear him. He went to the bathroom to look at his back the blood was all over and some of it was even old blood. He realized he needed Foster to help clean him up. He went to reach for his phone to dial her number when he realized what he was doing and put the phone down. He sat on the edge of the bed for about five minutes before heading down stairs to see Emily
"Hey"
"Morning darling"
"Made you tea"
"Thanks"
"You feeling better?"
"Yeah much"
"Dad i phoned Gillian"
"You did what?"
"I phoned her to find out what happened between you two"
"What did she say?"
"She told me that she didn't want to be friends if you were going to act the way you did."
"Did she say anything else?"
"Yeah she said that she didn't want to be on the other end of your temper"
"She said that?"
"Yeah. You okay?"
"If i'm honest Em. No i'm not"
He went back to his room and Emily decided to follow him
"Dad. Dad don't walk away from me. Don't walk from this. If you do you are walking away from Gillian you are giving up on ever rebuilding your friendship with her"
"Well maybe i'm better off on my own"
"No dad your not. You need someone. You need Gillian and she needs you"
"No she doesn't besides the last time i got close to someone i lost them"
"What?"
"Nothing forget i said that"
"No dad i have had ENOUGH of you telling me what to do. I want to know what you and Gillian are hiding from me, i want to more about you but you never seem to want to let me in. I am your daughter for crying out loud please dad please just let me in".
Cal didn't realize how much he had been keeping from his daughter. He decided to tell her as much as he could
"Okay darling. When i was younger i met this girl. She was smart, funny and she was beautiful. She taught me how to love."
"What happened?"
"I... i had to go away. I left her behind."
"Why? i mean if she taught you how to love why would you let someone like that go?"
"I just had to love, I knew i could never give her what she wanted. The thing is Em when you love someone you have to let them go"
"You've never told me this before"
"Well when i was with your mum i didn't want to tell you in case it slipped out. We would have been fighting even more"
"I suppose so. Did you ever think about finding her?"
"All the time"
"Then why haven't you?"
"I gave up"
"Why?"
"She had probably moved on to someone else and any way i had you to think about"
"So you gave up looking for the one girl you truly loved for me?"
"Yeah you were the most important girl in my life you still are"
"Your the most important man in my life dad"
They gave each other a hug. However back at the office Torres and Loker were still looking over the video footage and any others they could find to help understand why their bosses were fighting
"Well how about here?"
"What are we looking at?"
"See here on Lightman's face. It's pain. He is in pain"
"Emotional or physical?"
"I'd say both"
"Well every time I've seen him fight with Foster i have never seen pain on his face and I've been here longer than you"
"So something Foster said must have caused him emotional pain. I heard her on the phone to Emily and she said that they had a fight last night"
"You listened in on a private conversation?"
"Well i was going to see Foster because she was late for the meeting this morning and i happened to hear hear the conversation"
"So what happened?"
"She told Lightman that she didn't want anything to do with him when he was acting the way he did."
"Why would that cause him emotional and physical pain."
"Maybe that caused him the emotional side but something else is causing the physical?"
"Like what?"
"Well he had a bad back didn't he?"
"Yeah but that should have cleared up by now"
"Well then why is he pain?"
"Don't know"
"There is something that Lightman and Foster are not telling us"
"Why do you think Foster knows?"
"Remember her words fro their first argument? I will tell everyone your secret? She knows and we need to find out what it is"
"Well she is still in that meeting let's go and have peek in her office"
"Are you crazy if we get caught Lightman will fire us"
"Well Lightman isn't coming in for a few days and i can delete the video footage off the cameras so i think we are pretty safe"
Torres then smiled at him and got up off her chair to join him. They looked around to see if Foster was coming their way before entering her office and shut the door
"Dad do you want more tea?"
"Yes please darling it seems to helping my back"
"I thought that was long gone?"
"No it came back i must have twinged it again"
"Well do you want me to take a look?"
"No ta darling it will be fine"
"Dad let me look"
"I said no Emily!"
Emily jumped back away from him and just starred at him with fear over her face
"I'm sorry Em i didn't mean to..."
Emily turned around and ran towards her bedroom. Cal followed her he tried the door but it was locked
"Emily? Em open the door. Please. I didn't mean to shout at you i just don't know what came over me. Please Em"
All he could hear was her crying into her pillow. He leaned back against her door and fell to the floor slowly. He placed his head back against the door to listen to her. He had made his daughter cry. He got up and went into his bedroom he sat on the end of the bed and tears began to roll down his cheeks. He wiped them and then picked up his phone. He typed in Gillian's number. He paused for a moment before pressing call.
"Hi this is Gillian Foster i'm available to come to the phone but leave a message and i will get back to you as soon as i can"
"Hi Foster it's me. I know i shouldn't be calling you but i had no one else. I'm sorry about the other night but your right. I don't like this me either. I shouted at Emily and she is now crying into her pillow. I made my own daughter cry Gill. I hate myself for it. I need you Gill. I need you to help me please call me when you get the chance. Thanks love"
Torres and Loker had been looking around Foster's office for a while now and they couldn't find anything
"Find anything?"
"No you?"
"No"
"There must be something. Think if you were Foster where would you keep something so important that you wouldn't even want Cal Lightman to find it"
"I would lock it away somewhere"
"Remember their fight Lightman mentioned something that was locked in a drawer in her desk"
"Torres you are brilliant"
"Took you that long to realize it huh?"
"Do you know how to pick a lock?"
"Do you even have to ask. Move over. Watch and learn"
After a minute Torres got the drawer open. They started to search though the desk. Loker picked up an envelope
"What's this?"
"Well open it and see"
"What?"
"What?"
"There is a feather in here"
"A feather?"
"Yeah. Why would she keep a feather in her desk?"
"Don't know but it must be important. Do you think we could sneak it out?"
"What if she notices?"
"Don't worry what i have planned won't take more than an hour tops besides she will be in that meeting for at least another two hours"
"Fine let's do it"
Emily came out of her bedroom and went to her dad's door. She knocked hoping he would answer
"Dad?"
"Em?"
"Yeah it's me can i come in?"
"Yeah the door's open"
"Hey"
"Hey"
"Em i'm sorry i shouldn't have done what i did"
"It's okay. Have you been crying?"
"Um yeah i have"
"I'm sorry"
"No it wasn't you darling. I'm crying because of what i did"
"Dad it's okay"
"No it isn't. I shouldn't have shouted at you. You were trying to help me and i shouldn't have shouted at you i shouldn't be shouting at you at all really.You are my daughter Em and i shouldn't talk to you like that. I'm really sorry"
"I forgive you dad i will always forgive you"
"Thanks darling"
At that moment they heard the door open and in came Gillian
"Cal?"
"Gillian?"
"Where are you?"
"In the bedroom"
"Hey"
"Hey. What are you doing here?"
"I got your call i just wanted to see if you were okay"
"I'm fine but didn't you have an important business meeting?"
"Yeah i did but as soon as i got your call i canceled it"
"But they were important clients. We could lose a lot of money over this deal"
"You are more important than any clients right now"
Emily could tell they wanted to be alone so tried to think of any excuse to get out
"I think i left the kettle on dad so i will go and make you that tea i promised"
"That would be great thanks darling"
"Gillian?"
"Yes please Em thank you"
Emily quickly left the room. Cal was just sitting on the bed starring at Gillian trying to figure her out
"I thought you said you didn't want anymore to do with me?"
"Yes i did but that was before the phone call. Before i realized that you need me"
"Yes i do"
"Well tell me what do you need me for?"
"I need you to help me clean up my back again"
"It's bleeding again?"
"Yeah pretty bad this time"
"Well let's get into the bathroom and i'll take a look"
They got up and went into the bathroom. Cal then took his shirt off and Gillian noticed just exactly how bad it was
"Cal why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"I didn't want you to worry i mean you already had an important meeting coming up i didn't want to give you more stress"
"You should have told me. I don't care about stress or meetings right now. I care about you"
Gillian then proceeded to clean up Cal's back. He had layers of blood she could tell he hadn't been able to clean it himself he wasn't joking when he said he needed her. She then noticed that little black bumps had formed
"What are these?"
"What?"
"These little black bumps? They weren't here last time"
"There're probably nothing. Blood clots probably"
"Yeah they could be but i feel like i could just pull them out"
"You wouldn't would you?"
"No of coarse not. It would probably hurt like hell"
"Yeah maybe"
"Almost done"
Gillian finished cleaning him up and then rinsed the cloth out in the sink so Emily wouldn't see
"So tell me about what happened with you and Emily"
"I told her about my back pain she wanted to take a look but i screamed at her not too then she ran of to her room and started crying"
"You cried too didn't you?"
"How did you know?
"I can tell with you"
"That's funny i have more trouble reading you than anyone else"
They both just sat and starred into each other eyes. They didn't even notice that they were leaning in. There lips were just about to touch when Emily knocked on the door
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"You tea is ready and so is Gillian's"
Okay we'll be down in a minute"
"Okay i'll keep it warm"
"We should get downstairs Em will be wondering where we are"
"Yeah"
Torres just finished her test when Loker walked in
"Hey hows it going?"
"Good"
"What's wrong?"
"It just the machine can't seem to find an feather that matches this one"
"What? Did you double check?
"Yeah i did"
"So?"
"That means it's not a normal feather. Foster knows where it came from so she must know it's not normal"
"What is so important about a feather though i mean why keep it?"
"Well according to this Foster has had it since she was eighteen"
"How do you know"
"Her fingerprints are all over it. It looks like she has been holding everyday since she got it"
"Where did she get it from?"
"Well there is another set of fingerprints on it. I put them through but they don't match anyone's"
"How is that possible?"
"I don't know but something weird is going on and i want to know what"
"So do i"
"Well then i think we need to dig deeper a lot deeper"
"What do we do"
"We need to dig into their pasts. Both of their pasts. It has to be something that links them together.
"What?"
"I don't know but i think we should find out"