isaysimplewords

Here are some things Cal does, after Milliways, before he dies.

**********

Done with his shower, and no idea what time it is, Cal thinks he might like some breakfast. He puts on crisp, clean pants and a white button-down shirt, checking himself in the mirror. He looks clean, calm, rational, like someone you'd nod to in the streets rather than someone you'd carefully look away from. He doesn't look like he just went through forced detox, and he doesn't feel like it, either. Whatever happened in Milliways, it's sticking. He's still not really a fan of what he sees reflected at him, but he can do something about that. He will do something about that.

He starts by leaving his room illicitly for the second time in twenty-four hours. Last time he was looking for his stash. Now he just wants some food.

There's a guard outside the door, but he just regards Cal sternly, and not without a bit of surprise when he sees how neatly Cal is dressed. Grahame has probably had a word with him.

Grahame. Cal will deal with that later. Now, he just says,

"Kitchen. Want anything?"

The guard blinks and shakes his head. Cal says okay and goes downstairs.

This time, when he hears his mother's high heels clicking up the hall toward him, he doesn't hide. (Not that the urge isn't there. It generally is. It has nothing to do with heroin and everything to do with Violet Chandler.) Her eyes widen when she sees him, but her surprise at his clean appearance buys Cal enough time to speak before she can.

"I'm feeling better," he tells her. "Thought I might even try to eat something."

She looks at him warily, but says, "You certainly look better. Better than you have in months. But if you've got plans to go right back out and ruin it, then you can just forget -"

"I won't," Cal says. He goes to her and kisses her cheek and says softly,

"Thank you."

She looks startled and suspicious - they generally save the mother-son affection for the press, after all - then, after a moment,

"There should still be something left from lunch if you hurry."

Cal nods and goes, but not before he sees something like the trace of a smile softening his mother's eyes.

**********

The next thing he does right after he eats, before he can find a reason to put it off any longer. He's not going to put off doing what he should do. Not anymore.

So he goes to Grahame's study and knocks for the look of the thing before opening the door (and the pang of disappointment when the only thing it does is lead to where it's supposed to go is something he will, in the following months, get used to). He doesn't think Grahame will let him in if he knows it's Cal.

From the way Grahame stiffens when he looks up and sees Cal standing there, he figures he was right.

"It's not going to work this time," Grahame says, voice sharper and harsher than Cal has ever heard it. "I won't change my mind. I'm not continuing the ridiculous charade your career has become any longer, so if your mother has sent you down to - sweet talk me, you can both forget it." His hands are trembling as they grip the arms of his wheelchair; Cal closes the door behind him but stays right where he is, because he thinks Grahame might have a stroke if he gets any closer.

"She hasn't," he says. He doesn't know what Grahame is talking about, though it's safe to assume he's threatened to quit again. He does that a lot. Cal talks him down a lot, using whatever he has to use to keep his uncle under control. But not anymore. "I won't. You do what you need to do. After what I did, I don't blame you."

Grahame actually flinches. "We're not discussing that." His voice is low and cold and absolutely final.

Cal is silent for a long moment. "You do what you need to do," he repeats. "But things are going to be different now, and that includes how I treat you. If you decide to stick around."

Cal turns and opens the door, then pauses. His vision blurs as he stares at the door jamb and whispers, so quietly that he'll never know if Grahame heard him or not,

"I'm sorry."

Then he walks out of the study.

**********

"Marisa," Cal says to his son's nanny that night, "Why don't you take the night off tonight? I'll put Calvin to bed." As always, he feels faintly silly when he says the boy's name and wishes he'd pushed a little harder to name him something else. He can't decide whether naming a child after yourself is egotistical or just unimaginative, and anyway he still thinks naming the boy Reed would have been a better PR move, but his suggesting it pretty much meant that it was never gonna happen. Not that he's still a little annoyed about that.

Marisa is an efficient nanny and can be relied on to keep the Chandlers' secrets, but she has no poker face whatsoever. He'd be more offended by the doubtful look she gives him if she wasn't right. "Thank you, Mr Chandler," is all she says.

"Just, uh, leave me a list of the stuff I need to do," he adds with a self-deprecating smile. Marisa relaxes and smiles back.

Most of the stuff on the list is a pain in the ass, and Cal feels every bit as stupid as he's pretty sure he looks trying to bathe and brush the teeth of a squirming toddler. It's all made up for in a heartbeat, though, when Calvin chooses the story he wants Cal to read to him, then snuggles in warmly against him. Cal opens the book and starts to read, thinking that he finally gets what this parenthood thing is all about.

He reads to Calvin every night after that. At least, every night until he can't anymore.

**********

Deborah returns from vacation a couple weeks later. Cal greets her with a bouquet of yellow roses; he heard somewhere that yellow means friendship, and he knows he and his wife will never be in love, but maybe they can be friends. He explains this, a bit fumblingly, and Deborah smiles and kisses his cheek and says that he's sweet.

Nothing changes between them, not really, but Deborah joins them sometimes when he takes Calvin to the park, and Cal figures that's good enough.

**********

Cal writes the final speech privately, staying up late several nights in a row to be sure it's right. He doesn't want to endanger his family. Just himself. Gliardi will come after him and he knows his odds aren't good, but if he does this just right, maybe his family will be left alone.

**********

Cal had put Tina out of his mind because he never thought he'd see her again. But he does. He runs when she calls, even though he knows. On some level, he knows. And when the bullets start flying and they fall together, his last thought is that she shouldn't have been there at all.

Business concluded, Cal rises to his feet and swipes the small bag of precious powder from his uncle's unresisting hold. Swipes back, really, because it was his stash to begin with.

"Thanks, Uncle Grahame," he says, lingering with a smirk to enjoy the way Grahame refuses to meet his eyes.

"Get out of here," Grahame snaps, "before your mother comes looking."

As if that's going to happen right this second. Mother's probably two-thirds through her daily bottle by now. He does want to hurry and get this cooked up, though. Cal tucks the bag into his pocket and says,

"Glad we could work something out. I'll let you know if I - need anything else."

Grahame does glance up sharply at that. Cal gives his uncle his very best Charming Politician smile.

"Go," Grahame spits. Cal laughs and goes.

His good luck lasts approximately ten seconds. Then he hears footsteps - heels clacking on the polished hardwood floor. It can only be Mother, she's the only one who wears high heels around the house. Cal backs up a few steps and jumps into the bathroom, closing the door just before she turns the corner, calling Grahame's name. Grahame won't give him up. He better not. No, he won't. He'll want Cal coming to him for help from now on . . .

Cal listens tensely to Mother's footsteps receding, then ending abruptly as she goes into Grahame's study and closes the door. He gives a long sigh of relief, then rolls his eyes. Figures she'd choose today to be sober. He better get the hell out of here and back to his room before she's finished with Grahame. She'll search him herself if she sees him, then - he shudders. Anyway.

He reaches into his pocket to touch the bag, opening the door with his other hand. Anyway, shit, he's got to figure out a way to get this into his system with his syringes go -

Wait a minute.

". . . What the hell?"