About Time

Chapter Thirty Eight - Raining

They were staying in the new house and were slowly moving things from the old one. Sophie had claimed the bedroom down the hall and the room next door was going to be the nursery. Cal woke up and was surprised to find Gillian's side of the bed empty and cold. She'd been up for a while.
She was downstairs, sitting in the recliner, doing something on her phone.
"Morning, love. Why you up so early?"
"I had a weird, stupid dream and I couldn't go back to sleep."
"You should've woken me up."
"No, it was no big deal so I let you sleep."
"Are you hungry?" Cal asked, changing the subject.
"Not really."
"Do you feel alright? You're always hungry."
"I'm fine, just...not hungry. I'll eat something later."
"Okay."

Gillian went into the kitchen an hour later and ate half a gallon of ice cream, followed by leftover chicken curry from the night before. She, Cal, and Sophie were sitting at the kitchen table.
"Mama, you supposed to eat ice cream last, not first!" Sophie exclaimed.
Gillian busted out laughing.
"Sorry, Soph. I'll do it right next time."
"You better."
The little girl's comment had Gillian in stitches again. Her little voice was so full of attitude and sass that Gill couldn't help it.
"Sophie, stop making her laugh before she chokes on her food." Cal told her.
"Oops! Sorry!"
When Gillian had gotten herself together, Cal told her to hurry up if they were going to get to the office on time.
"But it's going to rain today. I don't wanna go!" Gillian whined.
"It's just water, Gill. We still have to go to work."
"But it's supposed to rain like...really hard. For the next several days."
Cal rolled his eyes at her choice of vocabulary. The woman had a Ph.D. and the best she could come up with was "rain like...really hard?"
"Then we should definitely go to work today because we won't get into the office for a few days."
"Ugh, fine." Gillian groaned. "But you have to carry me upstairs because I'm six months pregnant and I don't have the energy or the breath to do it right now."
Cal chuckled.
"Sure, darling." He told her and picked her bridal style, carrying her upstairs to get ready.

Gillian walked into Cal's office.
"I told you so." She said simply. The weather had knocked out the power in the entire building.
"It's going to get a lot worse than this. And if we hadn't have come in today, we wouldn't have solved two cases and you wouldn't have gotten caught up on your paperwork."
"But if we'd stayed home, we wouldn't have to drive in this."
"Gill, would you calm down? It's rain, not fire."
Ria came in before either of them could say anything else.
"It's nearly six which is when we usually leave anyway so Eli and I were wondering if we could leave a little early before this downpour gets any worse?"
"Yes, we won't be long ourselves. Be careful." Cal told them.
"You too."

Gillian got out of the car to go in and get Sophie and when she got back in after buckling her in the back seat, Cal had to keep himself from laughing at Gillian's expression. It was similar to what one would see on a cat's face after trying to give it a bath. Clearly annoyed with a hint of anger. It was extremely entertaining.

"It looks like we'll be staying home again today." Cal noted.
It hadn't stopped pouring for the last two days. Several places were flooded and many more without power. Including their house. Emily was currently in one of the guest rooms downstairs. She had come over yesterday and when the rain had only continued to get worse, she asked to stay the night at least.
"I do wish it would stop raining. But I'm okay with staying home." Gillian told him, scooting closer and wrapping her arms around his left one.
After a moment, Cal realized she had drifted off again. He didn't want to wake her so he laid there until she woke up again somewhere in the vicinity of two hours later. He couldn't be sure, the clock beside the bed obviously wasn't working because the power was out and his watch was across the room.
Gill had just woken up again and they hadn't gotten a chance to say anything before they heard the pitter-patter of little feet.
Sophie opened the door and ran and jumped in the bed between Gillian and Cal, followed quickly by an excited puppy.
"Morning, Soph. Morning Valentine." Gillian giggled.
"Good morning, Mama!"
"How long have you been awake? You seem very energetic."
"Emiwee gave me coffee."
"Oh god. That's just what you needed."
The doorbell rang downstairs.
"Who in their right mind is crazy enough to drive in this weather?" Gillian asked. Few people even knew their new address yet.
"I'm pretty sure I know." Cal answered. He got and got to the bedroom door before Gillian said something.
"Hey, Cal?"
"Yeah?" He asked, turning around.
"You're not wearing a shirt."
Cal looked down then looked at the dresser, and finally back to Gill.
"Right."
Gillian watched with an amused smile on her face as he dug around and grabbed a random t-shirt, pulling it over his head before heading downstairs.
Cal opened the front door and wasn't very surprised to be greeted by Torres, Loker, Reynolds, and Anna.
"What are you lot doing here?"
"We didn't have anywhere else better to be. We brought breakfast." Ria said, holding up the bags in her hands.
"McDonalds? Really?" Cal questioned
"It's the only place open! They're using their backup backup generator or something."
"Hey, we didn't have to pay for it, be appreciative." Gillian said behind him, reaching around and taking the bags from her subordinate.
Anna handed her a cup from the tray in her hand.
"We wouldn't come without chocolate. It's a milkshake." She explained.
"Oh, thank you!"
They'd brought pancakes, biscuits and bagels and English muffins with sausage, bacon, and ham, hash browns, eggs, along with other things, and five large black coffees- one for each of them except Gillian, who'd gotten the milkshake. They'd brought Sophie chocolate milk.
"What did you do? Order two of everything on the menu?"
"Pretty much. Ben charged it to the FBI so we didn't hold back. Figured Foster would eat most of it." Eli explained.
"Hey!"
"No offense." He added at his boss' exclamation.
"Love, you've eaten pancakes, two biscuits, one of those McGriddle things, and you're on your fourth hash brown. He's not exactly wrong." Cal told her.
Gillian stopped eating, placing the half-eaten hash brown on the paper plate in front of her.
"I'm full." She said quietly and got up from the table, leaving the room in silence for a few moments.
Emily nudged her dad.
"Go fix it!"
"I'm going, I'm going!"
He went upstairs and found Gillian in the nursery. Her back was to him. There were unopened boxes- a crib, a changing table, a dresser. The walls were painted pink and the baby's initials on a monogram in purple above where the crib would go. They hadn't gotten much more than that done yet.
Cal didn't say anything and Gillian didn't move, even though she knew he was there.
"Do you think I'm fat?" She asked finally, so quietly Cal barely heard her.
"Of course not. I think you're pregnant which gives you the right to eat whatever you feel like it and worry about it later. You're eating for two, remember?"
"Well then, what were you talking about done there?"
"Loker merely said that you would eat most of it and I was just saying that you did. That doesn't mean any of us care."
"I'm so tired of being pregnant! I'm tired of having to pee all the time! I'm tired of all the appointments! I want her out! I want her out and I want to be able to dress her and feed her and bathe her and just hold her!"
Cal used his thumb to wipe away the tears on her cheeks.
"I know, love. But look, at most you've only got eleven more weeks because there's no way they're going to wait any longer than necessary to deliver with her. You went nearly that long without even knowing you were pregnant."
"But now it seems like so much longer than it did then."
"Depends on how you spend it."
Gillian wrapped her arms around Cal's neck and put her head on his shoulder.
"I can go downstairs and send all of them home if you want me to." He told her.
"No. I'm okay now."
"You sure?"
"Positive. But we should probably lock this door when we walk out of here in case one of them comes snooping."
"Can't have that, can we?"

The candles had been moved into the living room and everybody was currently piled up between the two couches and the recliner. Cal, Gillian, Emily, and Sophie were on one couch, Eli, Ria, and Anna were on the other with Ben in the recliner. Lacey was currently being petted in Gillian's lap and Valentine was playing with Anna.
"So any chance we can get you to spill on the gender?" Ria asked.
"No. If I can carry the baby for nine months, you can wait that long to find out if it's boy or a girl." Gillian told her.
"Do you know?" Ria turned to Emily next.
"Of course I know. I'm the big sister. I have an advantage. No, you can't get it out of me either."
"Does Sophie know?"
"Yes I know and, no I not tell!" Sophie answered, climbing over Smily and moving Lacey into Cal's lap before getting into Gillian's.
"You're a very good little secret keeper." Gillian told her.
"What did you bribe her with?"
"Disney World."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Eli exclaimed. "How are we supposed to compete with that?"
"You can't."
"Okay but I want videos of Lightman at Disney World." Ben put in. "Doesn't really seem like his cup of tea."
"Hey, Dad took me and Mom one summer when I was little. He actually had fun."
"Now I definitely want videos."

When the rain slacked off a little that afternoon, the four left and Emily headed out.
"So our unplanned house party didn't turn out too bad." Cal noted.
"It was fun after my untimely breakdown this morning."
"You're entitled to a few of those every once in a while."
"I'll try to keep it at once a week."
"Good idea."
"Daddy, can I have Cheetos?" Sophie interrupted.
"Sure, Soph. Can you give me just a moment please?"
"I guess."
Sophie walked away and Gillian looked at Cal.
"She sounded crushed that she had to wait. Go get the baby her Cheetos."
"She gets it from you." Cal said, pointing a finger at his fiancée as he headed towards the kitchen.
"Can you bring me some too?" Gillian called.
"I don't really have a choice! You'll kill me if I don't!" Cal called back.