A/N: This little one-shot is set post-finale.

She squirms in her chair, silently cursing the poker face that is failing by the second, and trying not to flinch against the heat of Cal's stare. He's suspicious. He's… intrigued. His smile is half-cocked, and his brows quirk in open question, and his eyes dare her to answer the question he hasn't yet managed to ask aloud.

But she doesn't.

Mostly because they are far too good at this game to let it all end now. Here. When he's still miles from where she wants him to be, and when her skin positively aches to be seen.

And touched.

And…

The pain is long gone – there's nothing left of it but a memory. And so when she finally does decide to reveal the barest hints of an answer, that is what she reveals to him first: the pain. Not the exhilaration she still feels every time she looks in the mirror, or the unexpected thrill she gets just from keeping this particular secret… but the pain. After all, why should he be the only one who gets to dabble in playing dirty?

He reads her features and his eyes slowly narrow in frustration. Losing the upper hand wasn't part of his plan, and she can see that he's trying to regroup. To think. To react to her silent admission without overreacting, because the key word here is (obviously) still 'game.' Like cat and mouse, only sweeter. With familiar stakes. And with a certain tangible… something… that makes the half-cocked grin he's still wearing look at least ten shades more tempting. One hand hovers near his mouth and the other gestures between them, and it seems to take half a lifetime before he asks the obvious question: "Who?"

As in, 'Who hurt you, Gill?'

As in, 'Why didn't you tell me sooner?'

As in, 'So that thing about not having any more secrets. Was that all just talk, then… or not?'

But because pain isn't the only emotion she lets him see, his instinctive need to protect her doesn't unravel full-bore. So he lets it simmer instead. He's frustrated by her silence and he's aroused by her flirtation, and he can't quite work out the mental math that makes those separate pieces compute. He's… stumped, see? He's genuinely baffled. And her heartrate kicks up five more notches when she stops to imagine what the full truth might do to him.

"Who, Gillian?" he asks again. His tone is intense – it walks a fine line between petulance and foreplay – and although he is adamant about getting an answer, he makes no move to fish one out of her. Or in other words, he's stalling. He's trying to get her to volunteer all the details, so he can get a better read on the motive behind her words.

She folds her hands and steadies her gaze, trying to decide just how far she can push things before he will tire of trying to outwait her and opt to change the rules. Playing fair isn't his strong suit, and being his blind spot is a title that annoys her to no end, and she…

…she doesn't want…

…she's tired of living in the past, you know? Of treading the same water over and over and over again, until fatigue nearly pulls them beneath the surface. Of spending all their energy trying to ignore the obvious, because they're still too afraid to take a risk. To trust their hearts, rather than their heads. To turn a blind eye to the potential for failure, and focus on the finish line instead.

She smirks at him openly, and then quirks a brow at the sight of him looking so very, very flustered. Stalling was meant to be his game, see, and the fact that she's playing it just as well is starting to ruffle his proverbial feathers. His eyes darken and his nostrils flare – and just as he opens his mouth to speak, she lets out a quiet giggle and opts to cut right to the chase: "His name was Craig."

Which makes him frown.

Mostly because he doesn't know anyone named Craig, and he (quite clearly) didn't expect her to come right out and answer his question so soon, and – most importantly – because the way she answers it catches him completely off-guard. Meaning that the truth which Cal is easily able to "read" right off her face… is that someone named Craig caused her pain, but that she actually, ahem, liked it.

"Craig," he echoes, testing the weight of that word on his tongue, and then immediately reacting the same way any sane person would react when eating… oh, say, rotten eggs, or spoiled meat, or chocolate-dipped fire ants. His entire expression drips disgust, and his gaze is heavy with jealousy, and she giggles again as she watches him jump to the wrong conclusion.

Sex.

He's thinking about (rough) sex.

Of her in bed with a stranger named Craig.

Which is the most ridiculous thing she has heard in months… and yet the way he reacts with such palpable, unspoken possessiveness over her body in that way makes her squirm again, for an entirely new reason.

The room feels heated. Air circulation is at a minimum, and she's just waiting for him to blink, or to look away, or to give her some excuse to move, stretch, fidget, whatever, without benefit of an audience. But he's Cal. So he doesn't. Twenty-twenty hindsight is a burden she didn't expect to bear… and she nearly groans as she feels that dreadful, terrible, incessantly devious itch start to flare again while he's watching her like a hawk.

It's relentless, you know? That itch. Any distraction she finds from it is nothing but temporary, and the tease of her trousers against the fragile skin isn't exactly easy to ignore – especially while squirming. In a leather chair. While being 'read' by a stubbornly charming scientist who is (almost certainly) still picturing her naked. So in a nutshell? She suddenly feels very, very naïve for thinking she could turn his curiosity into something else. Something more. Something that will take them out of their water-treading rut and catapult them onto entirely new ground.

And just for the record? That's exactly what she wants.

New ground.

With him.

She squirms left and shimmies right, and then she drops an open palm down over her hip. She presses down against that aforementioned itch, in hopes that pressure will abate it. Her gaze stays locked with his, and she wills him not to notice what she's doing with her hand – but in perfect Lightman fashion, he doesn't miss a thing. He squints at her. Cocks his head to the side, purses his lips, and then nods ever-so slightly while she tries to look innocent. She isn't ready to admit the full truth just yet (she wants to toy with him a little bit longer), but this is Cal. And the harder she tries to pretend that there isn't a beautiful wound on her hip…

…the easier it is for him to realize that he's in the middle of being played.

Dammit.

"So this Craig," he suddenly offers. Thickly. With an accent so heavy that she has to actually lean closer in order to hear the words properly, and a grin that conveys everything his voice does not. "He's the one who hurt you, then? Right? I mean, of course that's right – I can see it right on your face, yeah? You're telling me that particular truth, straight out. Because I basically asked. Because I, Cal, made a direct comment to you, Gillian, about keeping secrets, or building walls, or some such thing. And you're… well, you're honest, aren't you, love? Even to a fault, at times. Which is quite a bloody lucky thing for me, given that you're also still my blind spot, and given that for as much as I tend to analyze the living shite out of the facial twitches of a million strangers every day, when it comes to you? I still scare easily."

It catches her only a tiny bit by surprise that the same man who proudly wears the physical scars of battle and carries the emotional wounds of a life lived at full throttle, claims cowardice now. Over her. Over the idea of 'them.'

And she finds it ridiculously annoying that he doesn't seem to remember what started this whole thing ("We all have our share of dirty little secrets, Gill. The trick, though, is being brave enough to let someone see through our carefully-built walls, without fear of rejection…"). That he's able to feign ignorance over the way her body tingles, and her heart pounds, and her imagination races with possibility every single time those aforementioned walls begin to crack. Which basically means that he's either been wearing blinders for the last year, or the words "scare easily" are the understatement of the century.

"Oh, please," she counters, not even bothering to hide the frustration in her voice. "The only reason I'm your 'blind spot' is because you're still choosing to see me that way. And you're certainly no coward."

Truth be told, she's more embarrassed than angry – she should have expected nothing less than his die-hard stubbornness even here, but still. She's only human. Her to-a-fault honesty suddenly feels like a heavy weight to bear, and treading water? It sucks.

She's doesn't want to do it anymore.

They're talking in circles; they're saying far more with their bodies than they've managed to say aloud, and dammit if he won't give her so much as a microsecond to actually adjust. To regroup. To pull the proverbial ace out of her sleeve, scratch the itch that's driving her insane, and then show him (quite literally) that she isn't a coward, either; that he might've been the one to start this particular conversation, but she's the one who voluntarily took the pain. She's the one who paid a perfect stranger to permanently mark her skin… and she can't help but imagine how good it will feel when her secret is finally exposed.

…when those carefully-built walls of hers come crashing down at their feet.

…when his hands trace the lines of ink and the swirls of color, and he feels her unravel beneath his palms.

"You're no coward, Cal," she quickly reiterates, as her voice automatically morphs into a tone she hasn't used on him before, "and I'm not nearly as - "

And trust her, the only thing that stops her from finishing the sentence is his perfectly predictable, perfectly infuriating need to give just as good as he gets. To flirt. To banter. To wield that gaze and that accent like they're some kind of erotic weapon, so that by the time she hears the gruff underbelly of his trademark "Aye, aye," slice through the air with ease, she already knows what he's going to say.

"Innocence fits you like a glove, darling," he tells her, over-enunciating the last two words so hard that she wants to throw them back in his face just for spite. And she wants to laugh, too; to tell him that a little bit of confidence goes a very long way, and that men who brag about having blind spots shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.

He's on his feet a second later, though – before she can blink, or speak, or even breathe long enough to tell him how wrong he is – and then he's right there, standing directly in front of her chair. Instinct makes her shift backwards, as he moves in for the proverbial kill. Habit pulls her palm down over her hip again, so that she presses once, twice, three times against the delicate skin and against the itch that seems perfectly in sync with the cadence of their moment. She thrusts her chin out in defiance, and her left hand makes awkward gestures between their bodies as he licks his lips… as he leans closer… as his breath lands on the shell of her ear, and his accent happily curls around the lobe.

"What's on your hip, Gillian?" he asks.

Actually?

Scratch that.

Because he doesn't so much ask, as he…

Instructs.

He's toying with her emotions, and he's stealing the all-important "upper hand" right out of her grasp, and he is such a bastard for using that look-but-don't-touch nonsense, when clearly – clearly – they both want to do the opposite. They both want to look and touch. At length. For as long as stamina will allow.

Still, though… old habits are extremely hard to break, and cat-and-mouse fits their relationship to a tee. So although her body wants nothing more than to latch onto his with fervor, her mind refuses to comply just yet.

She's the one who has been waiting for the perfect chance to make good on the promise she made to herself not all that long ago: that this year would be different. That she'd make it be different, blind spot be damned. And she's staring up at him – watching him grin in that infuriatingly arrogant way that makes her want to shake him and kiss him, all at the same time – and she just… decides. Right then and there. She can't change Cal, see? She can't love away his fear, or erase his stubbornness, or obliterate the sins of their past. But she can change herself. Cat and mouse doesn't make the water any easier to tread, and if she wants new ground, then she needs to reach for it.

Actively.

With faith, not fear.

"I could probably guess it, you know," he says. He shrugs his shoulders and scrunches his lips – and standing upright again seems to be an afterthought. It's as if his body initiates the movement before his brain can realize what's happening… before he can predict her next move… before she stands up, too, nearly colliding with his chest as she begins to walk him backwards across the room.

His brow crinkles in confusion even as his mouth pulls into an unashamedly lecherous grin. His eyes are darkening and dilating at breakneck speed, and he bites back an excited little groan at her sudden aggressiveness – and she says nothing, offers nothing, allows nothing, until the back of his legs collide with the sofa and gravity pulls him down. Thud.

He chuckles nervously. Pretends not to notice that his knee is trapped between her legs, or that she isn't following him onto a cushion, or that her very sensitive, still unhealed hip is quite literally within arm's reach. Instead, he simply swallows. He nods and blinks and then it's his turn to squirm, while her eyes finally tell him everything that her mouth does not.

"I'm just saying that I could, yeah?" he lamely reiterates. "That I could guess it. That's all."

He's looking up at her with a half stunned, half satiated expression, as though this is exactly what he wanted all along… but with a twist. And she knows his words are true – that he most certainly could guess the type of image that now adorns her body. Cal is nothing if not intuitive, and he knows her better than anyone else ever has. But truth be told, she doesn't want their game to end that way: with a round of Twenty Questions, and an inevitable boost to his well-fed ego.

"Think so, do you?" she counters. Also lamely. Because now it's his turn in the emotional hot seat.

And for everything they've said to each other since this whole thing began, it is that simple question which seems to sober him the most. It's four words without any clear-cut "correct" reply, and he falters. He frowns, ever-so slightly. He breathes deeply, and the flirtation behind his eyes darkens into something much, much warmer – and just like that? The maddening itch of her week-old tattoo is the farthest thing from her mind.

"Do you… do you want me to guess it, Gill?" he asks sincerely. "I suppose that's the real question. Because whatever you want, darling, that's what I want to do."

She considers this. She studies his face, and she examines the words, and she ponders every possible angle that his multi-layered question contains. But in the end? Her answer is no. No, as a matter of fact, she doesn't want him to guess it. She doesn't have the patience to watch him waver between a butterfly or a rose… an angel or a dove… a star, heart, dolphin, or peacock (all of which are wrong, anyway), and she's much more interested in what he tacked on at the end: that he wants to make her happy. To do what she wants, simply because that will make him happy, too.

And so, in the end? It takes only two or three short moments before the perfect reply – the one that makes her skin tingle and her imagination swirl with possibility – reaches her lips. She's still standing in front of him, staring down at the unguarded expression he wears and awed by the sweet way he's staring right back up at her. And then she just…

"Gill?"

…she just…

Smiles.

Right at him.

Her heart feels so full that she fears it might actually burst, and she can't seem to remember why they've never done this before – why they would ever have been stupid enough to let fear control their future. She's happy, you know? She's genuinely happy, from the inside out. Which a cliché, she realizes, but she can't be bothered to care.

A light, airy laugh precedes her parting words, and she doesn't even think twice about reaching down to touch his hand. She laces their fingers together and strokes her thumb over his warm skin, and slowly but surely, she watches recognition dawn behind his eyes. "Gill?" he tries again.

But it's different now. It sounds…

"No, I don't want you to guess it, Cal," she tells him.

It sounds like a new beginning.

"I'd rather you see it for yourself, instead."

END

A/N: For whatever it's worth, I've been inked five times. Mine have always itched like crazy & have nearly driven me insane while they healed. And second, I'm still actively writing my other 2 multi-chapter fics – at the moment, though, I'm dealing with a completely unexpected and very stressful thing that is overtaking most of my free time and has turned life upside down for the past month. This little fic was a much needed burst of lighthearted fun, and I hope to be posting updates to the other stories soon.