May I: New and Old

As Gillian closed the cab for the second time today, she stood in front of the familiar building: The Lightman Group. Even though it had only been a week since the attack—it seemed a lot longer since standing here again.

As she walked through the door, she tried to walk as normally as possible. Her shoulder was still in the sling—which didn’t really seem out of the ordinary—and got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. Still, she ignored it and walked down the hall, before slipping into her office.

A sigh of relief escaping from her lips as she sat down behind her desk. She grabbed her personal laptop that she had left and the old picture of Sophie, before slipping off her sling and carrying everything out of the office.

This time as Gillian walked back down the hall, she nearly collided with Ria Torres, who was coming out of the computer lab.

“Sorry.” Ria uttered as that feeling of realization came over them. “Lightman said that you were taking an extended leave—“

Gillian looked slightly confused. Of course he would have told them that she was taking an extended leave. She hadn’t been at the office for almost a week, and had appeared twice since then. “I am.” She paused on that note. “And so is Lightman.”

 She turned to leave, Ria suddenly by her side. “I’m confused. You’re both taking an extended leave at the same time? You’re not—“

Spinning on her heels, Gillian raised her eyebrow. “Romantically inclined?” She could have laughed if it hadn’t been partially true.”No.”

“Besides the two of you playing hooky from work and coming up looking worse for wear, how does Lightman look? That being that you’ve seen him recently.”

“He’s fine. But don’t expect him to be up to speed when he comes back.” Gillian warned, trying to hide the concern. He was lucky that he hadn’t gotten away with a few internal injuries and nothing more.

As she opened her mouth to say something more, Eli Loker came around the corner. He looked like he something rather important to say and was walking quickly towards them.

“We’ll talk later?”

“Sure.”  Although it left Ria slightly confused, she didn’t have time to think about it much when Loker approached.

“Why was Foster at the office? I thought Lightman said she was on extended leave.”

“Apparently, she still is. And so is Lightman.”

“They’re not having some fling that we don’t know about—”

“No, she denied having an romantic relationship with Lightman. Although, when I actually mentioned Lightman’s name, she looked worried. She was nursing her shoulder upwards, like she had sustained a new injury—and she had new bruises and cuts on her arms and face.”

“You’re thinking that Foster and Lightman got in a fight?”

“There was no hostility in her voice, but there was a lot of guilt.”

“So you’re thinking that Lightman was injured just like Foster was, and now she’s blaming herself for whatever happened to them.”

“Something like that.” Ria peered down at the file in his hand. “What’s in the file?”

“Information that should help us solve this case.” Eli offered as they made their way into the computer lab.

----

When Gillian arrived back home, she placed the computer on the couch and carefully took off the sling. Already she had nearly had it on, back and forth for the last week. It was getting annoying that she couldn’t keep if off for longer than an hour or so, before her whole arm and shoulder began to ache.

Having finished all but a day’s worth of medicine, she had refused the second prescription so to get back to normal as soon as possible.  If she decided to drive tomorrow to pick up Sophie from the hospital—there was no way that she was going to chance being drowsy or confused on the way over.

Grabbing some of Sophie’s clothes that were still draped over the couch, she slowly walked up the stairs; her body stiff and worn from the week. There was still so much to do before Sophie came back. Who knew how much additional worry she would have from her little girl’s newly diagnosed heart condition? 

Walking towards the unused guest room, she hung up the clothes in the empty closet. It looked rather bare, considering that she didn’t have much to put in there just yet. The room had been painted white by the previous owner; there were paintings against the wall that she didn’t know what to do with; an old desk that was up against the wall that she usually kept her laptop on. Now with the chain of events that had gone down the last week, there had been about zero time to change this room around for Sophie’s sudden arrival.

It had been almost three years since she had searched for anything child related—which she was pretty sure that the times had changed since then. Even though the psychological part of her was telling her that everything going to be alright, the logical side of her began to panic.

And then her mind flickered back to an image of Sophie’s room. All her stuffed animals sitting at the edge of her bed, her pink and white bedspread; the books on the shelf in her closet. This little girl already had everything that she ever needed, right there in her own home. Although both Ava and Sophie had gone without a lot of things, what had been left behind, shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly now. A toy she played with, a book she read, or a bed she slept in, would give Sophie some familiarity in a new home. 

But how much of that should she start over with? Should she get a new bed, but keep the old bedspread and stuffed animals? Should she pack up all the books and toys, or get new ones? Or a little of both—keep some things, but mix it in with the new books and toys?

It didn’t take Gillian long before she realized that she could mix both old and new, and then sat down behind her desk. She thought that since Sophie technically didn’t have anything to sleep in, she would search for something new and keep the old bedspread.

She would have to stop by the house again, maybe before the funeral. It would be good for Sophie to see her house one more time before they left it for good. She had no idea how long the house would be there—or what might happen to it, now that Ava was gone. 

What she feared the most wasn’t that Sophie wouldn’t be able to understand how her biological mother had been succumbed by a terminal illness—or how she had come to a place that she too had always been loved—it was if Gillian could love her as much as she did.