Sky Full of Stars

By the time the boys finally return home from their road trip on Saturday, Jamie is worried sick. She hasn't answered any of his calls or texts since Thursday afternoon, and after asking around, he learns that none of his teammates have heard from her either, not even Tyler or Jordie. He calls to check with Felicity but she informs him that she hasn't seen Calista since Wednesday night. As sort of a last effort, he sends an email to her intern Miranda's work account, but she replies, saying Calista didn't come into the office yesterday.

As soon as the plane touches down in Dallas, he's herding Jordie and Tyler to Jordie's truck and hurrying his brother, who insists on driving home since Jamie's so high strung. The elevator ride is nothing short of torture and when they finally reach her floor, he practically sprints down the hall to her door, knocking forcefully for a solid thirty seconds. Jordie calmly pushes him back from the door and pulls his key ring out of his pocket, using the third of three keys to unlock the door. Jamie shoves past him to get inside the apartment first and he dumps his bag by the door as he quickly scans the room before disappearing down the hall.

The bedroom door is closed but as soon as he pushes it open and peeks his head inside, he can immediately breathe a sigh of relief. He feels Jordie and Tyler come up behind him as he moves further into the room and he sinks down on the edge of the bed next to the form under the comforter, rubbing his hands over his face.

"You fuckin' scared the shit out of me, Liss."

He's pretty mad at her for making him worry but there's no heat in his voice and when she slowly uncovers her head to look at him, he notices that her eyes are bloodshot and her bottom lip is trembling. "I'm sorry," she croaks pitifully. "I couldn't-"

She breaks off into quiet sobs and pulls the blanket back up to cover her face but he quickly yanks it back down, feeling worried all over again. "Whoa, what happened? What's wrong?" He grabs her arm and pulls to coax her to sit up. "Talk to me."

"Jamie...." She lets out a shaky breath when she sees Jordie behind him, where he'd moved to stand at the foot of the bed. Tyler is there too but he's lingering by the door like he's not sure he's allowed to actually go inside or that he even wants to, considering the circumstances. Calista pushes a hand through her unwashed hair and wipes her cheeks, mentally preparing herself to tell Jamie what she hasn't even admitted to herself out loud yet. "I got fired," she says quietly and her brows furrow like she's about to start crying again as she chances a glance at Jordie.

Jordie's eyes meet hers and she bites her lip before dropping her gaze to her hands and he just knows what this is all about. "Fucking bitch," he mutters angrily as he stalks out of the room past Tyler and she jumps when the front door slams behind him a moment later.

Jamie watches in confusion as his brother leaves but when he looks back at her, his questions about Jordie go away and the only thing that matters is her. "Liss, explain it to me. How did this happen?"

"Megan. She....found out something about me. She told everyone and it got back to Mr. Lennox."

"Well, what was it? What could've been so bad?"

She sniffles pitifully and looks up at him but has to immediately drop her eyes from his face because he just looks so worried and it makes the guilt bubble up again. She's been hiding it from him for an entire year and now she's embarrassed. "Okay," she says hesitantly. "Please don't hate me."

"C'mon, Liss, I'm not gonna hate you. Just tell me."

"When I first moved here, I, um-.....I started sleeping with Jordie."

She squeezes her eyes closed as soon as the words leave her mouth, waiting for the blow up she's expecting to happen, but it doesn't come. Only a few seconds of silence pass but it feels like hours and when she finally looks up at him, he's just sitting there dumbfounded. That look though fades quickly into something more like disappointment.

"Why would you do that to yourself?"

"What?" she asks, utterly confused as to why he's not laying into her for doing something so stupid. This is not at all the reaction she was preparing herself for and now she isn't quite sure to do with it.

"Why would you put yourself through that, knowing he doesn't feel the same?"

Suddenly she feels embarrassed for a whole different reason. Jamie's right, she knows that; it was stupid of her to get involved in a relationship where she cared for Jordie way more than he cared for her. An arrangement like that just doesn't work when one person has feelings and the other doesn't, but she hadn't cared about that. Until now. She knows Tyler is standing there in the doorway, hearing everything being said, but she's trying not to think about it because this is humiliating enough to admit just to Jamie. "It was better than not having him at all," she mutters.

Jamie frowns and scoots closer, stretching an arm out toward her. "C'mere," he says sympathetically.

Calista lets herself be hugged for a few moments before she pulls back to look up at him. "You're not mad at me?"

"No," he sighs, running a hand down his face. "I'm mad at him though."

"Why?"

"Calista, I love you, but you're about as subtle as a puck to the face. There's no way he doesn't know how you feel about him, but he still decided it was a good idea to fuck you? On a regular basis?"

She feels the burn of shame all over so she knows that her face has probably turned bright red. First of all, she hadn't thought she was that obvious with her feelings, but apparently she has been. Second, the fact that they're having this conversation at all is humiliating. Third, the fact that Tyler is still standing there, trying to act like he's not listening, just pushes it further. "It wasn't....regular basis," she retorts defensively, even though that's almost a lie. Almost, but not technically. It had all started last January and been on a pretty regular basis for awhile, but there were a few weeks in February and April when he was dating someone that she didn't see him at all.

"Are you still doing it?"

Calista shakes her head weakly. "Not since before I left to go home for the summer."

"Wait, that long? Then why the fuck did you get fired?"

"Karma," she shrugs. "Because I'm a hypocrite. I bitched at him about Megan because of the fraternization rule, knowing full well that I'd broken it. It doesn't matter that I'm 'outside normal circumstances' or that it hasn't happened since last season. The whole organization knows about it now so firing me was his only choice. I mean, it's my fault. I did this to myself."

"Liss-"

"But I love my job so much. I worked so hard to get there and now it's gone. It's gone just like that." Her voice cracks and the look of sympathy on Jamie's face just restarts the tears she's been trying her hardest to hold back since they arrived. "I don't know what I'm gonna do. I have to get a job like right now. If I can't fine one, I'll have to go home. Jamie, I'm gonna have to go back to BC. And oh my God, they're gonna want to know why. Everyone's gonna ask what happened."

"You're not going back to Victoria."

"I don't have a job anymore, Jamie. I can barely afford this place as it is. I'm not gonna have a choice."

"Liss, I'm not letting you go back to Victoria. Not like this. Not because you have to. Whatever you need, as long as you need it, I'll help you."

"No," she protests immediately, swiping her hands over her cheeks. "No way. I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking me. I'm offering."

"No, I can't. I've done everything for myself up to this point and I'm not about to start sponging off of you."

"Fine, then tell me how to help."

She sniffles and shakes her head. "I don't know."

The both of them just sit there silently for a few moments and Jamie glances over at Tyler before looking back at her. "When's the last time you ate something?"

"I had lunch with Miranda on Thursday."

"Calista, it's Saturday." Jamie sighs and shakes his head, getting up from the bed to give her more room. "C'mon. We're going to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I don't care. Get up."

"Jamie-"

"I'm not asking you, Liss. You've been in this room since Thursday afternoon and I'm getting you out of it, if I have to carry you out myself."

"Alright, fine," she huffs but Jamie just crosses his arms over his chest like he's waiting for her to prove her agreement by actually getting up. "I'm not wearing pants so...."

He finally takes the hint after that and turns to leave the room, but he pauses on his way out the door. "I'm gonna go upstairs and change out of this suit, but I'll be back so don't even think about trying to get out of it."

After that, he's gone, pushing Tyler back down the hall in front of him. She begrudgingly climbs out of her bed and dashes across the hall to the bathroom to take a quick but much needed shower before blow drying her hair and coming back into her bedroom to get dressed. Since she's already feeling so shitty, she decides to actually put some effort into her appearance in hopes of making herself feel a little bit better. She picks a pretty blouse paired with her favorite pair of jeans instead of her usual bad mood go-to wardrobe of sweats and a comfy tee shirt. She fixes her hair into a loose side braid and applies some concealer and mascara, just enough to make herself look normal again, before grabbing a pair of boots from her closet and heading to the living room.

Jamie and Tyler are both sitting on her sofa watching tv, having changed from their suits to jeans and tee shirts and returned in the time that she was getting ready. They both rise when she appears and Jamie turns off the television before leading the way out of the apartment. They load up into Jamie's SUV for the ride to the diner and after they sit down at the table and order their usuals, things get quiet. She's sitting in between the two of them and she can feel them both stealing concerned glances at her until she finally just breaks down and says, "Talk about something. Please. Anything. Well, not anything, but-...."

Tyler cracks a smile at that and starts talking about the game they'll be playing tomorrow night in another chance at beating a team they'd just lost to on their road trip. He and Jamie fall into conversation easily and Calista just sits there and pretends to listen, thankful that the focus is finally off of her. She spends most of lunch thinking about her situation and what to do now and she barely eats anything off her plate even though it's been two days since her last meal. The very thought of having to tell her family that she lost her job is nauseating because she knows they'll all ask why. Put that with the fact that she has no idea where to even start looking for a new job and that panicky feeling is back, settling heavy in her chest and making it harder to breathe.

Tyler notices that she looks like she's starting to get upset again so he reaches over to give her hand a comforting squeeze under the table and after they leave the diner, he suggests they go out and do something. Calista protests, wanting nothing more than to go back home and hide away in her bed for a few more days, but Jamie agrees that it's a great idea because he hopes that if he can keep her out and busy, that maybe he can get her mind off of it a little bit. He even lets her choose their activity so she decides on going to see a movie because at least that way, she's sitting in the dark not having to talk.

The theater is packed of course since it's a Saturday afternoon and Jamie and Tyler get stopped three different times on their way in. She goes ahead of them alone to get a seat while they take a few moments to sign some things, but when they eventually come in to join her, each one of them takes a side so that she's stuck in between them. Tyler leans in close to tell her that one of the fans outside had asked about the whole tampon aisle incident and that Jamie had blushed and stuttered until he saved him. That gets a little smile out of her and she elbows Jamie's arm teasingly but he just lets her because at least she's smiling for the moment.

Once the lights go down and the movie starts, it's a battle for the arm rest between Tyler and Calista. He's constantly pushing her arm off to use it himself but she pushes right back until Jamie eventually leans up to whisper yell at them like they're children. It puts Calista in a little bit better mood anyway, which had pretty much been Tyler's sole purpose. He slouches down in his seat, getting himself more comfortable with his legs splayed out all up in her space and when he props his knee over against her leg, she wonders if he's doing it on purpose to be annoying or if he's just oblivious, but she's pretty sure she knows the answer to that.

The boys finally return her to her apartment late in the afternoon, satisfied with their efforts of taking her mind off of all the bad shit going on but that all that comes screeching to a halt when she opens the front door and sees Jordie sitting there, waiting. Jamie walks straight into her back after her abrupt stop and when he looks up and sees his brother, he drops a hand to her shoulder and gives a reassuring squeeze.

"We're gonna go," he says and then he turns to go back out the door, pushing Tyler with him.

Calista watches them go over her shoulder but once the door is shut behind them, she hesitantly makes her way over to the living room where Jordie is sitting on the sofa. Instead of sitting next to him, she opts for the other chair and she pulls one of the pillows into her lap, hugging it to her chest while avoiding looking at him.

"I'm so sorry, Liss. This is all my fault."

She shrugs her shoulders a little. "No it isn't. I still made the choice too."

"Yeah, but she wouldn't have even known about us if I hadn't-...." He shakes his head and runs a hand over the scruff along his jaw. "I'm sorry. I feel like that's starting to lose its meaning because I've been saying it so much lately, but I really am."

"I know," she says, nodding weakly.

"I went and talked to Seth. Told him it was all my fault-"

Her eyes snap over to him for the first time since she sat down and she frowns. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, I did."

"It won't change anything," she says quietly. "Word got around, the entire organization knows. He couldn't rehire me even if he wanted to."

"Well, he knows anyway."

Calista chances another glance at him but immediately looks away when she finds him carefully watching her. "You didn't confront her, did you?"

"What?"

"Megan. You didn't give her the satisfaction of knowing she got me fired." Jordie doesn't answer and when she looks up at him, his shoulders are slumped and he's pushing a hand through his hair with a guilty expression on his face. "What'd she say?"

"Oh, ya know, just bitched at me for getting her fired."

"Unbelievable," she scoffs, shaking her head. "I mean, actually that's totally believable. She's-....something else."

"Yeah. I should've listened to you back in October."

"Well, I hope you've learned your lesson." She doesn't bother actually looking at him but he can see the faintest hint of a smile on her face and it kind of just hits him all over again how hard this probably is for her and yet she's still trying to make a joke.

"Look, Liss, Jamie told me what you said earlier....I couldn't let you go home like that. I'd be the biggest asshole in the world if I got you fired and then just hung you out to dry. I mean, I'm already pretty up there but-....I'm not just gonna leave you to fend for yourself after I fucked up your life. I wanna make it better. I wanna help. Whatever you need-"

"I don't want your help, Jordie," she snaps, feeling a surge of frustration. "I just-....I want my fucking job back."

"I know," he sighs, defeated.

Calista feels the tears threatening to spill out again and presses her fingers over her eyes to stop them while Jordie just watches her with a frown. He hates seeing her like this, especially when he knows it's his fault she's upset.

"I'm gonna make it up to you, Liss. I promise."

He immediately rises from his seat on the sofa, plants a kiss on the top of her head, and leaves the apartment without so much as an explanation.