This is the one-shot. Just needed to get it out of my system! It hasn't been beta so I do apologise for grammar errors and such. Tell me what you think! Just having fun with Grace's past.
One Fine Day
"How very insightful" Jane said with laughter ringing through his words and flashing that trademark grin of his. He glanced at the corner of his eyes to see Van Pelt rolled her eyes in response. His grin deepened as he sensed that today was going to be a good day. Lisbon had assigned Jane and Van Pelt to check out the three women in the victim's, John Green, life – his girlfriend, the fiancée and of course, Mrs Green. Yeah, the man seemed to love having women surrounding him. "However, you are wrong."
"Of course I am" muttered Grace as she continued to walk along side Jane on the quest for some lunch. She had decided that she would not fall for any of the consultant's traps and remain calm. Grace knew that he loved it when she argued back especially when it was anything spiritual; he was a natural antagonist. A little flame sparked into life in his blue eyes when he was about to have another go at her. It was pure entertainment for him. She didn't really mind but somehow Grace always managed to stick her foot in her mouth and that was what she wanted to avoid.
"Do you want to know why?" asked Jane tilted his head to the side and peering at her as if she was a slide under the microscope. The study of Agent Grace Van Pelt had many complexities that made the subject extremely interesting when a case was straight forward as this one. Jane subtle noticed the way the tension appeared in her shoulders as he continued to gaze unabashed. He started to count …1…2…3…4…5..6…
"Why am I wrong then?" Van Pelt turned to glare at him with her hands on her hip while admitting to herself that he had one this round. Damn! Sometimes it was like working with a small child that was a genius and had to inform all grown ups of his know-it-all status. It could be so annoying but, she conceded, so cute too; the gleeful almost happiness emotion that spread across his face as he began to inform her mistakes. Although she guessed that Jane would have a few words to say about using 'cute' and him together. She unconsciously smiled as Patrick went ahead to explain why the fiancée could not have committed murder.
In the middle of explaining his observation on the fiancée behaviour, he noticed two things that one – Grace was not paying attention and was smiling at something and two – there was a man a few metres away staring intently at Van Pelt. There was a surprised expression etched to the man's face before a look of distraught appeared. Although both concerned him it was the later that intrigued him more.
"That man is staring at you" Jane noted to Grace, still looking in the direction of the perpetrator.
Grace broke away from her thoughts and gave Jane a confused. "What?"
He nodded to over her shoulder. "The guy over there wearing blue jeans and yellow polo shirt. Dark features. Do you know him?"
Van Pelt tried to capture Jane's eyes and see if she could read the truth from them which was impossible anyway but she still wanted to see if she could tell when he was winding her up. "This better not be cheap entertainment for you or anything embarrassing for me" she stated with a little growled that had Jane looked at her with his most innocent look.
Oh yeah she hadn't forgiven him the last time he had manipulated her into following his advise. Getting Grace drunk and daring her to ask the young guy who had been staring at their table all night out turned into a disaster since said guy was gay and had been giving Jane the eye all night not Grace. Patrick inwardly winced. He had hoped that that incident was forgotten but the old saying was 'hell has no fury like a woman's scorn'.
She turned slowly, taking a breath and muttering under that hitting the CBI consultant was a bad idea that Lisbon would frown upon but wouldn't be totally surprised that it had eventually happened. Her eyes locked with the man taking him all in.
"Oh."
"Oh what?" Patrick was fascinated by the look of recognition on Grace's face but concerned that she turned suddenly pale. Whoever that guy was, and Jane would suggest an ex-boyfriend, the relationship did not end well and Van Pelt was still hurt by it. A need to protect her surged through his body as he took a step closer and voiced, "Are you ok?"
Grace spun round facing Jane but not looking at him. "Lets go somewhere else for lunch. Your choice. You like delis don't you. I know this great one that does an amazing chicken stuffing and cranberries. Its two blocks away." She had threaded her arm through his right and grabbed his forearm to propel him forward.
In a quick march she had him half a block down before Patrick could regain his mental capacity and dig his feet into the ground to slow the process. The whole episode was one big puzzle that had Patrick Jane drooling over to know – as a caring friend of course. "Grace?"
Van Pelt was not hearing him nor she was she paying attention to the mystery guy that had begun to jog to catch them out shouting a her name twice. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man was also accompanied by a pretty woman who was quickly walking behind the man. This escape was not working or beneficial to Grace. He reached up and placed his hand over hers' that had an iron clad clutch of his arm and squeezed determinedly.
She glanced at him at the unexpected touch and he could see the desperation to avoid the oncoming confrontation. Both had slowed down to a walking pace without knowing.
"Grace. Whatever this is, you can face it" he said softly before adding a cheeky smile, "and I'm here to help! How lucky can you be?"
Grace snorted before yielding that running away was futile. "We could have succeed in running away if you actually would got off that couch and took up some form of exercise", she retorted slightly as she stood and braced herself for the eventuality. The meeting was going to be a disaster particularly because Patrick Jane, the man who can't shut up, was here.
She turned, placing a smile that felt brittle even to her on her face and waited for the man and woman to catch up. Jane hated that smile while entranced by its origins. It was the one she used when she needed to be polite to horrible people because her parents grounded into her the use of good manners. He had seen it being used on suspects that were guilty and could help ponder what the man had done to earn such a mark against him. However, it also put Patrick on the defensive.
"Grace!" panted out the man who had reached their sides, bent over leaning his hands on his bent knees. "Good to see you….Christ!...I'm out of…"
"Breath?" supplied Jane helpfully smiling at the man who stared at him like he had grown two heads. Up close, Patrick could see that the guy must have playing football because he had a broken nose and was very broad shouldered; must have dated Grace in high school or in early college or both. Meet through Van Pelt's dad being the coach of the school team, he would guess. Definitely the stereotypical jock – good looking, athletic and popular – attractive qualities to have in the hormonal teenager and young adult years. "Should do more exercise" Jane suggested with a wicked smile which earned a subtle nudge in the ribs from Van Pelt but also a small twitch of the lips. He had scored! Sweet!
Grace cleared her throat. It drew both men's attention to her which made her slightly uncomfortable. "Hello Graham" she said quite coolly but polite. "How are you?" She wanted this all to be over preferable before the woman showed up or Jane did something to humiliating.
"Life has been good" he stated. "Can't really complain." He gave a burst of laughter and smiled again in her direction.
Jane held the laughter that was bubbling inside of him; this Graham clearly could not perceive Grace's lack of genuine enjoyment at meeting again. He wondered if he should point that out. Glancing sideways he caught the end glare from Van Pelt and realised that he better not. So he coughed instead to make himself known.
Van Pelt visible winced, she had hoped and prayed that Patrick would just stay at the sidelines and be an observer – but no such luck. She turned back to Graham with the fake smile plastered across her face and started the introduction. "Graham let me introduce to my…"
"Patrick Jane" he cut in before Van Pelt could finish, holding out his hand. "It's very nice to meet you." Graham accepted it with a wary expression and Jane knew that the man was confused about how to handle him although squeezing Patrick's hand in a show of primal aggression was not it.
Grace sighed and revealed, "Graham is from my home town and used to be my boyfriend…"
"Fiancée", Graham interrupted with a confused look. He sent a smug look to Patrick who just raised his eyebrows at the strange display of possessiveness.
"Sorry, fiancée" Grace voice with anger as she glared at the man. "But that was years ago." Said in a dismissive tone Jane knew that Van Pelt was trying to appear unperturbed by the revelation. It was working on Graham but not him. This still wasn't the full story.
The man had the decency to blush and that intrigued Patrick Jane.
"Graham?" A feminine voice called from behind. "There you are! Where have you…oh! Grace. Nice to meet you again." The last sentence came out very clipped and stilted. The lady dressed in a summer red dress with high wedges looked extremely pained at seeing Grace Van Pelt again and was definitely not happy to see her. Jane thought his eyebrows couldn't be raised any further in surprise. A love triangle? With all the key figures in place it was taking Jane not very long to add all the pieces.
"What are you doing here?" questioned the lady in a slight accusing tone.
Grace back straightened and bristle at being interrogated particularly when she was having a bad period in her life being aired in front of the nosey man on earth who had to know everything.
"Investigating."
"Hi, I'm Patrick Jane." He butted in intentionally not liking the way evil lady had become the bulldog. Jane continued to smile at the couple while moving slightly closer to Grace and resting a hand on back for moral support.
She glanced over at him and quickly smiled. Even though he could be annoying, manipulated bastard, Jane had turned out to be one of a few that Grace could rely on helping her if the time came. If she was honest dealing with her past coming to bite her on the ass was less stressful with Jane than the rest of the team. He was good at reading the situation and she knew that he must have figured it all out. The hand on her lower back was sign – he was rooting for her.
"Clara Davies" she replied her arm going round Graham's waist while raking her eyes up and down Jane with abandonment. Patrick knew that some women would say that he was an attractive man and he had noticed both Lisbon and Van Pelt giving him the eye over but this woman made his skin crawl. He wanted to state clearly that he wasn't a piece of meat. "I'm an old friend of Grace", she tone was sickly sweet when addressing him. "How do you know Grace?"
"We work together." He slung an arm round Van Pelt's shoulder and drew her into his body, forcing her to put an arm round his waist. A couple's hold.
An idea popped into Jane's head and Van Pelt noticed it the moment the wicked gleam shone through his blue eyes at her. Her stomach dropped and all she could do was send a hurried pray to God.
"How do you know my darling Grace?" enquired Jane with a smirk. "Grace knew Graham meet at high school." He gave a nod to the man.
"Grace and I were best friends and were in the cheerleading squad."
"Really?" Jane's gaze dropped down to Grace's widened green eyes at that piece of golden information. "Would have liked to seen that!" Grace narrowed her eyes at him where he winked in response. "So how did you steal Graham from her? A drunken sex romp or pregnancy scare?"
Clara mouth fell open at the question while Graham face turned bright red and Grace covered her mouth with her hand to hide the smile that was breaking across her face. This is why she loved working with Patrick Jane. There expression was priceless and so deserving.
"Neither." Clare spat out. "She left him at the altar."
Now that astounded Jane he was sure that the two of them had caused some serious mischief to hurt Grace. He glanced at Grace. She was in a defensive position about to shut everyone out and close off her emotions. That was his biggest tip off that it still wasn't the whole story. He wanted to push further. "She didn't leave me there", he stated a wicked smirk playing across her features. Jane wiggled his left hand to allow the sun to catch the light on the gold wedding band. "Must be true love."
Grace eyes widened in disbelief at the lengths Patrick was willing to go and found herself revealing the true to all after seven years. "The reason I never appeared was because I saw my fiancée and best friend going at it like a pair of rabbits on the honeymoon suite bed the night before the wedding. Lucky me," Grace spoke very sarcastically.
Jane hugged her in sympathy before turning back to Graham and Clara. "No lucky me, Grace. If these two hadn't been doing the dirty then you would be married to scum and still be chatting to a two-face bitch best friend. I bet the sex wasn't great either with Graham having to be shared."
Grace burst out laughing at the statement. It was so true. God she loved this man sometimes.
"I see that you are married now." Jane had noticed how Clara had displayed her left hand on Graham's upper arm. "However, I would go to say that you both have been unfaithful to one another; Graham because he regrets his choice in picking you over wonderful Grace or any other girl he screwed. While you are conniving social climber that needs to get to the top even if it means doing the horizontal tango. Personally I feel sorry for your kid." Jane statement was said with complete ease and friendliness to the couple. Each had turned a bright shade of red at being addressed in such a manner and for having their dark secrets being revealed.
"Why you!" screeched Clara about to slap him in anger as well as Graham taking a step closer with clenched hands ready to throw a punch. "You pig! How dare you say such things!"
Grace Van Pelt stepped up in front of Patrick acting as a shield between them and him. Her back was straight and her stance was ready for fighting positions. "He says them because he's always right" Grace said trying not to smile at their faces.
Graham took another step forward menacingly but Grace coolly looked unimpressed. "You punch Patrick and you're assault a CBI agent which means immediate arrest and harsher punishment on sentencing."
Reluctantly the fisted hand moved back to Graham's side and stood beside his livid wife, both still fuming at the blonde man hiding behind their once upon a time friend.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time", quipped Jane from at the back.
Grace bit her lip to stop the giggles escaping her at the consultant's antics. "I think this little reunion is over", she said diplomatically. "Goodbye."
Without waiting to see if their reactions Grace quickly threaded her arm through Patrick and started to walk away. However, after they had turned the corner onto a new street Grace turned to face him and stared for a full minute before flinging herself at him for a hug. Arms around his neck, she squeezed tightly trying to convey everything she felt at this moment. Elated. Happy. Jane stood slightly stupefied until slowly he wound his arms around her too. Her head burrow at the side of his neck he could feel as well as hear the repetition of "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
He smiled at that. "You're more than welcome."
Van Pelt loosened her hold but did not break the embrace. She stared straight into his blue eyes and smiled with every bit of happiness appearing on her face. "Thank you!" she solemnly said. "I own you." She really did and at that moment, Grace knew what she could swear to do – help Jane capture Red John. She promised herself that she would start tomorrow. She kissed his cheek and released him.
"Well, you definitely own me lunch", mentioned Jane with a wide grin on his face.
"That I can do!" Grace gave another bright smile before gesturing him to follow her. "I know just the place!"
Patrick watched for a second at the joyful spring in her step as she moved further down the street. He felt something had change between the two of them; like they were closer than acquaintance or work colleges but not exactly friends. In an odd place but that was ok for him and he would say that it was fine with Grace too.
"Yep, this has turned out to be one fine day."
The End.