my life was child's play - so it began

Cal's canon, The Fix, is a fairly complicated one. It's a satire, so the plot takes a lot of twists and turns and things tend to get laid on pretty thick. This, for me, is all made more interesting by the fact that I do not have access to the entire canon. The Fix was not particularly popular when it debuted in London in 1997; the American debut was better received (as one might expect for a play about American politics), but it didn't exactly set the world on fire, either. It's very rarely staged now. As a result, it's not one of those plays where you can buy a scriptbook or find a DVD. The only part of the play that is easily accessible is the soundtrack, which is missing a couple songs and seems to vary slightly depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on when you buy it.

The play's story is not entirely told in its songs; the summary in the liner notes provides a complete enough picture to pull the story together and make sense of what you're hearing, but it's very sparing of the details. This, with the addition of a few random clips from a bootleg of the London show, gives me a strong enough portrait of Cal's character that I feel very comfortable writing him for Milliways, but it's also left me with having to extrapolate, fudge, or just plain make up a lot of stuff.

So this post is about offering information about Cal's canon for people who want it. The first cut is a copy of the liner note summary, just to give you the basics. The second cut is a hilariously futile effort on my part to make sense of The Fix's slippery timeline, compounded by my accidentally Millicanoning Cal as being probably a few years younger than he actually is at the start of the play. Oops. Don't worry, though, eventually I just gave up and started analyzing things.

( Liner notes summary. )

( Now join me in trying to apply LOGIC to all that. )

I think that's all for now - I'll edit if more things occur to me or other questions crop up. OH, and if anyone knows where I can find a full copy of The Fix, in any form? PLZ HALP. Thank you.

Cal's been officially settled into his new apartment for about a day with the phone rings. Sam is in the shower, so for a ridiculous split second Cal thinks the sound has something to do with the running water. He hasn't been here long enough to give out his number, after all. Not that he remembers it yet. But there's a piece of paper.

He blinks at the phone for a second before remembering the next step. (Hey, it's been nearly a year since he had a phone to answer, the instinct has atrophied somewhat.) Then he reaches out and picks up the receiver, saying out of some lingering habit,

"Chandler residence."

The Door opens into Cal's living room, which features a brown leather sectional couch. The color base of the room is fairly neutral, with a few colors overlaid that emphasize the framed pictures on the wall without going overboard. In short, it looks exactly like it was decorated by someone with good taste and a substantial budget who knows Cal very well.

Cal hesitates for just a second before closing the Door behind them, then turns to Sam.

"I'm, uh, just gonna take these into the bedroom," he says, plucking the boxes out of the air, "then I'll give you the tour."

Most people, on finding themselves with a Door to the new world they were going to be living in, would open it right away, even just for a peek. Cal hasn't touched his since it appeared. The last time he had a Door, it was waiting for him to make one final visit to his home world; when he was done, it disappeared, permanently cutting him off from his home. Even after all the months he's had to deal with his losses, and the realization he's come to that his world was a cruel place in comparison to a lot of others, he still wants very badly for this Door to lead him home. But it won't. And so, rather than open it onto whatever half-familiar sight will be on the other side, in a New York he's never set foot in before, Cal has left his Door alone.

He can't put it off any longer, though. He has the paperwork for his new identity from Ianto, and Bela is finally here and ready to help him find an apartment and put that paperwork to use setting up his new life. He'd like to tell her maybe next time, but he can't, not when he's pushed himself to this point and not when she's so looking forward to it. (And not when she has minimal time left to spend on his problems before her own start coming down to the wire.)

So, with Bela's hand in his, Cal takes a breath and finally opens his Door. He almost closes his eyes as he does it, to buy himself one last second before he has to face the fact that it isn't opening to a hallway in the Chandler compound, that Grahame's study isn't just across the way and he won't find a small bathroom behind him if he should close the door and open it again, but he doesn't. His hand tightens convulsively on Bela's, but his eyes stay open.

What they see, before they step through, is wholly unremarkable - it's a relatively quieter area in Manhattan, foot traffic thin enough so they can pause to get their bearings without being slammed into. It shatters that last bit of hope Cal had been pretending he wasn't holding, and his heart drops.

Bela can tell tell this is not the easiest thing for Cal to do, even as she glances around the street, taking in as much of their surroundings as she can. So far, so good. Nothing too different. No aliens walking down the street, at any rate.

She squeezes his hand. "Hey. One step at a time gets you there, yeah?"

A woman passing by gives her an ugly look. As she and Cal walk along, with Bela doing most of the talking, chattering away trying to take his mind off as much as she can, more people stare daggers at her. How - bizarre. Bela begins to wonder whether there's a doppelganger of her somewhere on this world. Maybe a bitch diva or something.

Then she passes a newspaper stand. As she pauses to take a look at the New York Times stack closest to them - a specific date is a useful thing to have - all becomes clear:

UK REFUSES TO GROUND VALIANT

In Wake of President's Assassination by British Prime Minister, Valiant Allowed to Remain Skyborne

Interim Prime Minister cites expense

Ah. That explains it. How funny. She switches to a flawless American accent. "So we need a pawn shop first. I'll sell a piece of jewelry for enough cash to get your bank account and debit card - please let them have those here - and then we can check into a hotel. I'll take care of everything from there."

". . . what?" Cal, accustomed to Bela's accent and only half-aware of the looks she's been getting, gives her a blank stare. She raises an eyebrow and taps the front page. He scans the headline and says,

"Holy shit." Then, after a shocked pause, ". . . right. No accent. Uh. Good call."

Well. He's certainly distracted now.

"What an exciting surprise," she says with a wicked gleam in her eye. The excitement of this challenge begins to build. Bela loves this part. "I trust we'll have at least a couple more. But don't worry. You're in good hands. Let's find that pawn shop." Bela seriously doubts if there is too much this world can throw at her that she can't handle. Besides, she's got a designing job to do. Nothing is getting in the way of that.

There is, most conveniently, a pawn shop nearby. Bela pawns a diamond necklace for some quick and ready cash; Cal wanders aimlessly around the shop while she haggles. The rest of the afternoon is spent opening a bank account with the money, and finding a decent hotel. Milliways dropped them too late in the day to get much else done, so they have dinner and work up an itinerary for the next few days. There's a lot of work to do.

Something is going to happen.

Cal knows that, but he can't remember what it is. But as long as the joint he and Dad are sharing stays in Dad's hand, he won't find out. Just make sure Dad keeps it, because as soon as he passes it over, Cal will find out. He's seventeen, and that's important, too. Seventeen and tall, almost as tall as he's going to be once he's done growing, hungry all the time as his body tries to develop fast enough to fill out the height he acquired in that growth spurt a few months ago.

"Cal, take this. It's your turn."

He doesn't want his turn. But Dad pushes it into his hand, saying,

"Now, your uncle -"

No. Cal drops the joint, waits for it to hit the carpet and set it on fire. But it doesn't land.

"Just because you don't want it doesn't mean you get to waste it."

Not Dad. Cal looks up at a man he doesn't know, holding the joint elegantly like a cigarette and sitting next to him, where Dad was.

Picking up where Dad left off.

"- has taste, at least, can't keep his eyes off you lately." Looks at Cal expectantly. "It's your turn," he prompts.

"What do you mean?" Cal whispers. He's thirty-eight years old and hasn't thought of this conversation for twenty years, but he knows it by heart.

Dad looks at him, stricken. "What do you mean what do I - don't tell me you haven't - oh shit."

The man takes a drag off the joint. "Well, your uncle is how he is, you know that, but it's nothing to worry about. Just a passing fancy, I'm sure." Measured and precise, not trying to downplay or comfort: "You have changed, after all."

"Uncle Grahame is - he wouldn't - he hates me." Even the stutters, the pauses, are the same. The tremors Cal can feel taking hold. He's seventeen years old and his uncle -

"He wants to fuck you."

"That's not how it went!" Cal cries. "That's not what he said!"

"It's what he meant." He leans toward Cal, wrist propped comfortably on his bent knee, smoke from the joint expanding in a cloud, too heavy to drift up into the air. "It's what you heard. It's why you spent weeks after this talk unable to look your uncle in the eye. So you wouldn't encourage him. Eye contact makes predators strike, doesn't it?"

"No." Cal is thirty-eight years old and he doesn't have to stand for this. "He never even tr -"

"Even tried to touch you, yes, yes, dear sainted Uncle Grahame. Shame, really. You both might have ended up happier if he'd just had the guts to molest you like dirty old uncles are supposed to do."

Cal gets to his feet, backs toward the door. This is his dream and he makes the rules and if he can open the door, he'll wake up.

"For Christ's sake, Cal," Dad says, "don't get worked up. He's not going to try anything. And it's not as if

you can't hold your own if he does." The man smiles, brief and brilliant. "Strapping teenage boy versus a cripple - sounds like a fair fight to me."

The door is locked. Cal is Bound in his own bedroom. This isn't right, he's supposed to make the rules. Why can't he get away? Why can't he wake up?

"Nothing more important than the upper hand."

"No. That's not true anymore." Cal is seventeen years old and afraid, not because he might have to hurt his uncle, but because if it comes down to that, he knows he won't.

"But you did. He taught you to use whatever you had, and you're a very good student when you want to be. He would have gotten over it, Cal. He would have moved on to someone else, you know. You were hardly the love of his life. At least not until you made damn sure you were. You didn't let him move on."

He puts his hands on Cal's shoulder, one on top of the other, and rests his chin on them, mouth on level with Cal's ear. "He says he killed himself because he brought about your death, but we know the truth. He killed himself because he loved you. You made him love you," he whispers.

He puts a finger under Cal's chin and lifts, tipping his head up and making Cal look into familiar sharp gray eyes.

"You killed me," Uncle Grahame tells him.

Cal wakes with a jolt, and doesn't sleep for the rest of the night.

Cal had not expected for Sam to still be female the next time he saw him. Her. Whichever. But Sam was, and clearly such situations must be taken thorough advantage of.

Sam agreed wholeheartedly with this sentiment, which is why they are now tangled up asleep together in Cal's bed, and have been for the last several hours after spending an enjoyable afternoon exhausting themselves.

Cal is still asleep, though he's not likely to be for much longer.

The last time Cal brought Sam up to his room, he was nervous and a little tense and couldn't seem to shake it for more than a few minutes at a time. Of course, Sam wasn't a woman last time.

It makes all the difference. After all, when it comes to - bringing women upstairs, he knows what he's doing. (Tina made damn sure of that. No second-rate lovers for her, thank you very much. And Cal can be a good student, when the subject is its own reward.) It's not new. He's got experience on his side.

(That's not all that's going on - far from it - but thinking too much is what nearly spoiled everything last time. It's much easier today not to make that mistake.)

Author's Foreword from the second printing of Calvin Chandler, Jr's autobiography; published 2042, re-issued 2057



I am going to tell you something new about myself. I'm sure you don't think that's possible. After I've spent my life in the spotlight, after countless exposés on my family and this reprinting of my autobiography, how can there be anything to tell about myself that the American public hasn't already heard countless times?

But there is, and it's this: I believe in ghosts.

With a family history like mine, you're probably expecting some sort of overwrought metaphor. After all, my father's noble suicide, sixty years ago next month as I write this, is the stuff of legends. Even on the rare occasion that the media does manage to talk about me without talking about him, his name is still there, implied in mine. I've long since made my peace with growing up in his shadow.

But, even though there is a connection, that's not what I mean. What I mean to say is what I said: I believe in ghosts.

I had the same woman as a nanny until I was eleven. I think Mom kept her on longer than she really needed the help just to keep things stable for me. God knows I adored Marisa, and kept in contact with her until she died twenty years ago.

When I was eight, Marisa told me a story. She only told it once. I only needed to hear it once.

She told me of a night, a few months after my father's death, when she met him in the hallway outside my nursery. He was worried about me, she said; he'd come all the way back from the afterlife just to make sure that I was okay. And when she had reassured him that I was, and he believed her, he left.

Now, understand that Marisa was not the stereotypical Latina nanny. She was second generation, had been to college, and had never, at least in my presence, uttered so much a syllable of superstition before she told me that story. I didn't know what to make of hearing such a thing from her.

"That's crazy," I said, "there's no such thing as ghosts."

Marisa smiled. "Don't believe me," she said, "just ask your grandmother."

I laughed, more disbelieving than amused. Grandmother was right there. Even if she hadn't been listening to the story, surely she'd have something to say about Marisa getting her involved?

"Grandmother, did you hear that?"

My grandmother, the most practical skeptic I will ever meet, a woman who kept her sharp tongue right to the end and never hesitated to let fly when she heard something she thought was foolish - she just looked at me. In silence.

And so I believe in ghosts.

Calvin Chandler, Jr
April, 2057

Cal needs a few seconds to gain his bearings when he steps through the door. The letter from the Bar gave him a pretty good idea of which door it would be, but it's still strange to find himself outside Milliways, in his home. His home that isn't his anymore.

He's outside the bathroom, across the hall from Grahame's study. Former study. First floor of the building, just down the hall from the parlor, where the liquor cabinet is. Cal takes a breath, the plan Esfir helped him draw up still fresh in his mind. No time to waste. Mother first. The clock on the wall says one o'clock exactly; whether it's one in the morning or one in the afternoon - hard to tell, with the curtains closed and all the lights on - Cal suspects he knows exactly where he can find his mother.

The door to the parlor is open. Cal goes to it and stops, standing in the doorway. He was right. His mother is here, back to him, pouring herself a drink. The question of time of day is answered - she's wearing a bathrobe over a nightgown. A sense of surreality kicks in. He's spent the month since his return to life trying to prepare for this visit, but he knows now that there was no way to ever be ready. Not for this. It wasn't so long ago that he believed he would never see her again, and here he is. Here she is.

There is no time to waste, but he still stands silently where he is, waiting for the half a minute or so it takes for her to sense that she isn't alone. She turns, and sees him. The glass in her hand drops to the floor, a muted thump on the carpet. Cal steps into the room and closes the door, feeling both light-headed and very calm.

"Hello, Mother."

She goes stark white, and wavers. He thinks for a moment that she's going to faint, but she takes a sudden sharp breath and stays on her feet.

"Cal," she says, her voice unexpectedly small. She crosses the door toward him, moving with a caution that startles him. Violet Chandler never allows her uncertainty to be seen. Not ever.

She reaches up carefully with both hands and touches his face, stroking his cheeks, his jaw, the sides of his neck. Her hands are trembling. Cal looks down at her, confused for a moment. He almost doesn't recognize her. Then he sees it:

His mother has become an old woman.

He isn't ready for this.

Everything he's thought of to say, angry speeches and orders and condemnation, all of it flies from his head. Instead, he takes her hands in his and cradles them gently against his chest.

"I can't stay."

"I identified your body myself." It's nothing near a whisper, but the steel he's used to hearing in her voice is gone and it sounds like one.

"It was me."

"I don't understand."

Cal shrugs a little, helplessly. "Neither do I. Big change, right?" He's giving her the opening on purpose. He can't stand to look at or listen to this unfamiliar old woman standing in front of him. He'd rather have her taking potshots at him than see her looking so lost.

Sure enough, her mouth twists ironically, an echo of the mother he remembers. An echo is enough, though, and Cal laughs in sheer relief.

"No, I suppose I shouldn't rely on you for answers," she says. Her voice gains strength with each word as she pulls her hands from his hold and steps back. She looks so much more herself so suddenly that Cal can't help but wonder how she's explaining this to herself. A dream? One drink too many? Would she recover this quickly if she really believed he was here? Does he want to know the answer to that?

"Though if you've got an explanation for why you're here, I'm listening," she continues. Cal blinks at her, trying to catch up with the change and to gather his thoughts, and she rolls her eyes. "Some sort of Dickensian visitation ritual, perhaps?" she suggests. "Should I expect your father tomorrow? Grahame the day after?"

It takes a few seconds for the meaning of those last words to sink in, but when it does, it's Cal's turn to blanch. He can feel the blood drain downward, leaving him dizzy. "What? . . . what about Grahame?"

She looks unbalanced again, but only for a second or two. Then she says, the sarcasm very nearly masking the hollowness in her tone,

"News doesn't travel fast where you've been, does it? Grahame killed himself after your funeral. Really, you should be pleased, it was quite the grand romantic gesture." She looks at him and sighs. "Sit down, Cal."

**********

A few minutes later, he's on the couch, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Mother is seated next to him with her own glass, watching him keenly.

"I imagine you thought I'd be the one getting a shock tonight," she remarks. Cal looks at her.

"You think you're dreaming," he says. It's partly a statement, mostly a guess, which she confirms with a shrug. "Well, I know I'm not," he tells her.

"Drink that, Cal," she says. "Get some color back in your face. Then tell me why you're here."

He obeys out of sheer reflex, still conditioned to do what his mother tells him. There's too much whiskey in his glass - Mother's pouring has gotten more and more generous over the years - and he swallows it too fast. He regrets it immediately, taking a moment to breathe. He doesn't need the buzz on top of the shock.

"How," he says finally.

"What? Oh. Sleeping pills and whiskey. Well, it was the only option. He'd really gone downhill. He couldn't have held a gun still long enough." She pauses, neatly knocking back half her drink. "Either that or he thought it was poetic. The selfish bastard."

Cal nods slowly, feeling it all fall into place and already guilty about the sense of relief that steals over him as he figures it out. "He really screwed up your plans, didn't he? You can't push Calvin into my place without him."

Much to his surprise, she starts to laugh.

"Is that was this is all about? Dying hasn't made you any less foolish, has it? Cal, I am sixty-five years old and I drink like a fish. I'll be lucky if I live to see that boy graduate from junior high. Now, his mother can manage him socially and keep him from disgracing the family name, but she's got all the political savvy of a wood duck. If he does go into politics, he'll have to fend for himself. So you can stop imagining him trapped in your evil mother's clutches. Grahame or no Grahame, I'm out of time."

**********

He leaves Mother in the parlor, still half-convinced that she's passed out and dreaming. He wonders what she'll think when the stain of the whiskey she dropped is still in the carpet in the morning.

The whiskey he drank has done its job, cutting through the shock and allowing him to think. Foremost on his mind, even as he's disgusted with himself for it, is that he has more time now. He won't have to spend half his hour making his way to Grahame's apartment. He can spend the rest of it with Calvin.

He can hear his son crying as he approaches the stairs. It's the middle of the night. He must have had a nightmare. Cal picks up his pace, taking two stairs at a time, but by the time he gets to the top, Calvin's sobs have quieted to a hiccupy murmur. The nursery door is open. Marisa must be with him. She's such a good nanny. It's been a relief to Cal in Milliways, knowing that she was there. When he goes to the doorway and looks inside, though, the woman he sees isn't Marisa. It's his wife.

Deborah is cradling Calvin, murmuring soothingly to him, more maternal than Cal has ever seen her. He stands and watches, frozen in surprised silence, relief and hurt dawning over him together. Calvin is fine.

He isn't needed here.

"Mr Chandler." The whisper off to his left is so quiet it's barely there. Cal turns to see Marisa, gesturing for him to come away from the door.

"He's been having trouble sleeping since you died. It's just starting to get better. He'll never believe you're gone for good if he sees you now."

Just starting to get better . . . It's the only argument that could possibly get Cal to move. He didn't come here to make things worse. He can't be selfish, not now. It hurts almost physically, but he steps away from the door, off to the side where neither Calvin nor Deborah will see him if they look up. Marisa gives him a small, strained smile.

"She's taking her cues from you," she whispers. "In a few months, I'll hardly even have a job to do anymore."

Cal blinks at her. She sounds so . . . "You don't seem very surprised to see me."

"My mother would say it's Dia de los Muertos come early," she answers matter-of-factly. "Something like that, anyway. She sees spirits all the time." Then her expression turns somber. "And - I have something that belongs to you." She turns and moves swiftly down the hall. Cal follows, bewildered.

Marisa goes into her room; Cal waits outside, feeling vaguely that it would be inappropriate to follow her in even if she does seem to think he's a ghost. She emerges after a moment, holding an envelope. She takes a breath, hesitating, then says,

"Your uncle's assistant found this when he died. It has your name on it. It's his suicide note, I think. She forgot to give it to your mother, so I said I would. But I didn't." She holds it out to Cal.

He stares at it, but he doesn't take it. The only thing he can think to say is, "Why did you keep it?"

She shrugs a little, self-conscious. "It didn't seem right to throw a man's last words in the trash. I didn't read it. Sheila did, but I didn't." She continues to hold it out to Cal, pushing it a little closer in that unmistakeable gesture: Take it.

Slowly, he does, and looks at it. His name is on the front, in Grahame's crisp handwriting. He looks at the familiar forms of the letters, writing he's seen countless times, and blinks hard, sliding the envelope into his back pocket.

"Thank you," he says numbly. Marisa looks at him for a moment, then, with great caution, reaches out to touch his hand. Surprise flickers across her face when they make contact. A ghost, Cal thinks. She must have been expecting, on some level, to pass right through him. He smiles wanly.

"I'm a special kind of ghost," he tells her.

Her answering smile is identical. "I see."

Cal takes a breath, glancing back down the hall toward Calvin's nursery. "But not the kind that gets to stay."

Marisa wraps her fingers around his and squeezes. He looks back at her.

"You laid a good foundation," she says. "I used to worry about Calvin, but I don't anymore. First you - well, forgive me, but you got your act together and started paying attention to him. And after you died, his mother decided it was high time she did the same. She's learning as fast as you did, and she loves him. He misses you still, but having his mother helps. He's going to be fine, Mr Chandler."

Cal believes her.

**********

Cal stands in front of the bathroom, looking at the clock. He came back to this door automatically, even though any of them will do, really. The clock reads one-twenty-seven. He worried so much about not having enough time, and now he hasn't even used half of it and he's already done. He hopes Milliways is ready to let him back in early. He can't stand the idea of waiting, and he doesn't know if his willpower can hold out. He'd thought he would at least get the chance to hold his son one more time, but Marisa is right. He was right, when he tried not to think of it before. Calvin is too young to understand what dead really means. It would be selfish, and unfair, to confuse him.

He's going to be all right. The important thing is that he is going to be all right. His life is going to be his own. That's what Cal wanted. It's going to have to be enough.

It is enough.

Cal opens the door, and Milliways is there.

Cal, quite frankly, is probably not awake before Bela. He's gotten used to waking up at a certain time to go running, but he has also gotten used to not having someone else in his bed when it comes time to be awake. It's screwing up his internal clock.

If he was awake, though, he wouldn't mind at all. With Bela sick from that curse, and especially after her breakdown last night, he wants her around to keep an eye on.

Even if, you know. That eye is closed at the moment.

"Well, you've certainly got your mother's flair for drama."

Cal turns, and stares. "Dad?"

Reed Chandler smiles, a smile that Cal remembers more from pictures than from life. It's been almost twenty years since his father's death, and the drug use didn't do Cal much good, either. Memories fade.

"Come here, you idiot," Dad says, holding out his arms. He still has that same way of softening the word; it never stung coming from him the way it did from Mother or Uncle Grahame. The difference is, he doesn't mean it.

Cal hugs his father tight. "I've missed you," he whispers. They hold each other in silence for a moment, then Cal leans back to look at him. Dad doesn't look all that much older than him, he realizes. But then, if he goes by age at time of death, they're only ten years apart.

"Are you in Milliways now?" he asks. Dad shakes his head.

"Come on now, Cal. Remember where you are."

"Oh," Cal says. "Right." He's in his room, motionless on his bed as he has been for nearly a month. Awaiting instructions. It's quiet and still and he never ever has to think.

"Now what did you go and do that for?" Dad steps back and looks at him sternly. "You've got it good in Milliways, Cal. You're out of politics, you're getting laid, and you haven't got Violet or the gimp up your ass every time you turn around. I can't say I understand the thing with Sam, but neither do you and I don't think he does either. Maybe it's not all sunshine and roses, but nothing is and your death is a hell of a lot better than your life was."

Cal is silent for a long moment, caught between mortification that his father seems to know every detail of his existence (ohgodeverydetail) and simple indignation. "I just want to decide things for myself," he says finally. It sounds weak here, in this nowhere place where it's strangely difficult to remember how much everything hurt.

That, too. He wanted that too.

"Who doesn't?" Dad says. "That's all anyone wants, when you get right down to it. But most people don't try to kill themselves twice over it. You always did live too much in your own head. I used to wonder sometimes what the hell you would do if you ever met up with the real world."

"Guess we found out," Cal says hollowly.

"I guess we did. Cal, look at me." He puts his hand on Cal's shoulder. "In the end, you didn't do half bad. People like Gliardi succeed because everyone's afraid to tell them to go fuck themselves. My father was. I was. Grahame was. But you, Cal." He smiles. "You got sick of his shit and told him to go fuck himself. Good for you. Now here's your reward, and listen closely because I hate cryptic bullshit and I'm only saying this once: There's a doctor on the way, and he's going to wake you up."

Cal,

I know it's pointless to write this to a dead man, but you'll do as well as anyone. I haven't got a thing to say to anyone else, and there is not a single living person who cares if I live or die. Oh, your mother will weep crocodile tears in front of the press and go on about how miserable and unstable I was and how your death pushed me over the edge, but you know her. Once the doors are closed, she'll drink a toast or twelve to no longer having to worry about whether I'm going to turn on her. And Sheila will, perhaps, be a bit put out upon finding my corpse and realizing that she is going to have to go job hunting now.

For that matter, assuming you've come to your senses now that you're dead, you have no reason to care either, other than rejoicing in the poetic justice of it all. Killing myself over you gives you the ultimate upper hand, doesn't it? Well, don't be too pleased with yourself. You know you always had control of me, even when you were very young, before I [here a couple words have been violently scratched out] complicated things between us. I could claim that this is a bid to finally take control for myself, but we both know that isn't true. The truth, which I understand to be your favorite thing these days, is this: the moment I got Gliardi involved in your career, I got you killed, as surely as if I held the gun myself, and I am simply too old and sick and tired to live with that.

I heard you that day when you tried to apologize to me. I couldn't answer because I wanted to believe you had something to apologize for, and that leaves both of us acting like idiots that day. Anyone else would have snapped and lashed out at me years before, but you were always a good child, even when it meant you got screwed over. Your mother and I tried our hardest to destroy that, her for your career and I - I suppose I believed that if I could change you into someone unpleasant, I would be freed. That sounds ridiculous and most likely isn't true in the least, but it's the best either of us is going to get. We failed, of course, your mother and I, as your grand gesture last week has proven. I don't know where you got that goodness of yours, Cal. Not from any of us, and certainly not from your father. I have never apologized for anything and I am too old to start now. As for your apology, it is not accepted. You didn't do a single thing that I hadn't had coming for a very long time.

I love you. If you don't believe me I don't blame you. It might be easier for both of us if you didn't.

Grahame

Cal leads the way to his room upstairs, keeping Sam's hand in his.

He pauses, very briefly, at the door before he digs out his key. It's not out of nerves or anything. It's just that the cleaning staff is still kind of tweaked and he's never sure exactly what he'll find when he walks into his room. Mostly he still counts himself lucky that the door hasn't turned into chocolate again.

Today, though, he seems to have escaped unscathed except for the brightly floral pillowcases.

"Not my idea," he says, closing the door behind them.

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.

After walking away from Jenny's table, before Cal leaves Milliways, he drops the heroin in a trash can. He does it casually, not even really looking, to avoid drawing attention to himself. But his heart pounds as he does it, and he has to tell himself that he's not really doing it, he's just hallucinating. An incredibly vivid hallucination filled with green computer boys and friendly innocent blonde girls who save planets, and where he feels good and healthy and the way he imagines it would feel if he'd never so much as smoked a joint, but - it's not real.

He really hates that it's not real.

He doesn't want to go. But he'll wake up eventually, and if he can, he'd rather control when that happens himself. He's done that with dreams. Same difference, right?

So he puts his hand on the doorknob and whispers, "Time to wake up," and turns it.

He finds himself, inexplicably, walking back into the bathroom. He glances back in confusion and sees Milliways behind him. He takes a breath and closes the door, then opens it again. This time it's just the hallway.

He closes his eyes and waits for the nausea, dizziness, and exhaustion to set back in. Waits for his fingers to stop feeling sticky with Jenny's smoothie.

All that happens is that he hears the door to Grahame's study start to open, and Mother's voice saying something in a snide tone. Mother! That kicks Cal back into the immediate present and he bolts down the hall and up the stairs to his room.

He's disappointed when the door opens and all he finds there is his bedroom, but he has a feeling that will be happening for a long time. He drops onto his bed with a sigh, sliding his hand into his pocket.

The heroin is gone.

Cal gasps, digging deeper into his pocket. Tries to tell himself he dropped it, that there'll be hell to pay when it's found. But he knows he didn't drop it, because he still feels good, and he doesn't really mind (much, anyway, not in that viscerally terrifying way that happens when the next fix is too far away) that it's gone, and he can still feel the residue of the smoothie on his fingers.

Cal stares at the ceiling for a long time. Then he rolls over and closes his eyes and falls asleep for the first time in three days.

He sleeps for fourteen hours. When he wakes, he goes to the bathroom adjacent to his room for a shower. Before he steps into the shower, he takes a long, hard look in the mirror. He isn't sure what Milliways did to him, but he knows it's going to be up to him to stay clean. He looks into his own eyes and promises that he'll do it. Things are going to change.

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?"