A/N: So it goes again. I've been glove slapped. Sesamina demands satisfaction. She's going retro and wants the missing scene from Paint It Red when Grace finds out that the whole world knows that Rigsby's got the hots for her. Grace's POV. I own nothing of the Mentalist, just my growing anger at the stalling Grigsby ship.

Absolutely No Right

Lisbon walked in casually and I looked up from my computer.

She looked around. "Where is everyone?"

I answer. "Weird. They all called in to sign out. Jane wasn't feeling well, Rigsby's got a hot date, and Cho's got King's tickets."

"Son of a..." Lisbon's lax manner instantly tightens.

"What?" I frown.

She looks irate. Shit, what's going on? "Jane doesn't get sick, Rigsby's not on a date because he's in love with you, and the Kings aren't playing tonight."

Oh, God. My head feels dangerously light. "You know about that?"

Lisbon is grabbing for her phone, hot on the boys' trail. "Yeah, they're on an East Coast road trip. They're playing the Knicks tomorrow night."

"No," I stammer, "I mean about Rigsby. How do you know about that?"

She looks dismissive and angry at my question. "Everybody knows about that. The attorney general knows that."

I stutter an apology but she waves me off, too interested in chasing our team down and beating them up for their insubordination. I'm left to feel exposed and humiliated to my heart's content.

Fuck!

I'm trembling in my chair with fear and anger and embarrassment. Everyone knows? Knows what? What is it that everyone knows, exactly? I mean, nothing has happened between us. Nothing! And there have only been a few hints that he felt anything at all. Only a few, tiny little signs. Nothing major. Why would everyone know? And why do they know he loves me? What the hell?

I run through a quick list.

Okay, there was an initial, throwaway comment from Jane at our first meal as a team. Easy to just shrug off. Jane had been trying to embarrass me by suggesting that Rigsby was going to ask me to his room for a drink. Rigsby never admitted to it and it made him uncomfortable as hell. To me, that proved exactly nothing.

Second, Rigsby's doped-up, hyped-up, completely overblown and over-romanticized declaration that he loved me. Again, easy to discount. He was drugged. He was feeling vulnerable. I'd put out the fire on his arm and stayed with him while he recovered. The world was littered with drug-addled, temporary Nightingale syndrome cases like him. Healthy and not in love one minute, injured and professing his undying devotion to whatever chick happened to be leaning over his bedside the next. I seriously doubt that old Florence fell for "I love you," when she heard it from a patient. Why should I?

Third. He smiles at me all the time. So what? He's a smiley guy.

Fourth. He's overly protective of me. Again with the so what? I'm new. I'm a girl. He's a linebacker type with a big brother complex. He doesn't need to be in love with me to feel like he needs to protect me. I bet any woman who took my job would have been painted with that brush.

So then, what the fuck?

A new thought occurs to me. Oh, my God. My fists clench. What has he been telling people? Maybe this is worse than a few misunderstandings and a light crush that will fade like a bruise. Maybe, oh God, maybe this is so much worse that I'd ever feared.

What if he's been telling people that he loves me? Jesus, would he do something so stupid? Something so exposing to himself and unfair to me? Would he endure the locker room jokes by revealing to other macho cops that he'd taken a shine to me? Would he understand the scrutiny and skepticism it would put him under? Would he target himself as the nice guy and decent cop who lost his head for some rookie team member? And what about me? Wouldn't he understand that telling people he liked me would only devalue me in the eyes of other agents? That they'd see me as a chick first? Agent second? That they'd smirk when I passed them in the hallway? That, after all of my hard work and desperation to escape this kind of bullshit, I'd be labeled a whore if I slept with him and an ice queen if I didn't?

My anger focuses on another, more personal point. Would he seriously block my chances with other guys in the building like that? After all, I have brothers, I know how this works. A woman, regardless of her own wishes, is singled out by a co-worker and informs other men. I'd be his conquest. His prey. He wants me all to himself and scares off any potential rivals. The other men—especially decent men who respected him—will honor his request and not pursue me, even if I pursued one of them. They would see it as ungentlemanly, even if I had no interest in Rigsby and never would. If Rigsby had made his interest clear, he'd salt the earth. No romantic interest for me would grow in any of them.

He wouldn't. He just wouldn't dare.

Surely! Surely he knows all of this! Even if he was silly enough to fall for me, he'd keep it to himself. Protect us both. Right? Right?

And yet. Everyone knows.

Lisbon says so. Jane says so. And in front of Cho, so he knows so. Lisbon, unlike Jane, wouldn't say such a thing to me to taunt me, just like she wouldn't say it if it weren't true. And honestly? There probably isn't enough morphine in the world to make Rigsby say something he hadn't already been thinking about. Deception just isn't part of his cocktail. Aside from brawn, his chief ingredients seem to be honesty, awkward smiles, acute discomfort around me, and silence. Drugs, far from making him insincere or exaggerating, would thrash that awkwardness and silence like piñatas, sweet little avowals of undying love spilling out like Hershey Miniatures.

Damnit all to hell!

And damn him too. I don't need this. I really, really don't. He's sweet, fine. And cute. Whoop-dee-doo. He could be the West Coast's answer to male perfection for all I know and care, but I don't. On either score. Don't know. Don't care. Don't wanna know or care. He's off limits. Just like me. Yeah, that's right. I'm off limits. I'm the newbie, I shouldn't have to set the example here. He should be offering to take me under his platonic, asexual wing and helping me learn the ropes. Now I can barely look at him, never mind see him as a consummate professional and superior. He gets to act like some lovesick puppy and I have to painfully and pointed act like a bitch.

It's not fair.

Fuck! I'm so mad I want to hit something. No. Actually, I want to hit him. I want to charge him like my dad's entire defensive line and just wail on him, pummel him with my fists and elbows and scream my freakin' head off. Yeah, that would really blow off some steam. And maybe I'd actually give it some serious thought, if I thought for one second that he wouldn't let me.

But oh, no. He's Wayne Rigsby, baby faced sweetheart who'd take a beating from a girl and retaliate with nothing more than wide, blue eyes and a hurt expression. He might grab my hands, slow my onslaught with his patient strength, but once he heard my enraged ranting, he'd probably let me go. Let me continue. That makes me want to hit him even harder. How dare he be so noble and take my hits with the peaceful, accepting air of a Hindu cow!

Lisbon has long since left me at my desk. I'm sitting alone. I'm burning holes into my screen. I look over at my phone. In the last hour, I've taken three calls on it. Jane sick. Cho basketball. Rigsby hot date.

I took them in that order.

That last one? Before Lisbon impatiently informed me that the whole damn state government knows about his feelings for me? Angered me. A lot.

And now I'm angry for a whole nuther set of reasons.

He had a hot date, he'd said. No details, just clocking out. He said it so informally, like he'd never sleepily told me that he loved me and made me stutter and explain that I liked him back, but couldn't consider it. He didn't remember. Prolly never meant it in the first place. Now he was painting the town red with some floozy.

Just another guy.

Yeah, I was angry. Hurt, even. I don't love him. Nowhere near. But it's nice to be wanted. It's nice to be told that I was loved. From afar. Every girl's dream, right? A nice, respectful man who'd only ever touched me when we first shook hands, but still loved me. But he destroyed it for thirty minutes when he told me he was going out with someone else.

Now Lisbon has snippily informed me that he lied. He'd never go on a date with someone else. The way she said it, you'd think he couldn't even see other women, not around the gigantic torch he was carrying for me in his line of sight. Now I'm mad again. He lied to me and made me look gullible in front of my boss. And he still cares about me. And everyone knows.

Damn him.