Summary: Missing scene from The Red Mile. Because there's no way that any Grigsby shipper should ignore the fact that Rigsby put his life on the line to save Grace when O'Laughlin just crouched there like a bug with a semi-automatic.
Rigsby stalked toward O'Laughlin, radiating anger from every pore. He could still feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins after the shooting, and while some small part of his mind warned him not to do anything stupid, the larger, adrenaline-fuelled, pissed-off, protective-as-hell part wondered with cold fury weather to kill or to maim.
"What is the matter with you, O'Laughlin?" he growled.
The FBI agent's gazed snapped to his before narrowing in irritation. "Care to rephrase that, Agent Rigsby?"
Rigsby just kept coming. "Yeah. I do. What the fuck is the matter with you, O'Laughlin?" he asked once again, forcing himself to stop a few feet away from the other man in order to avoid introducing a more physical type of punctuation to his question.
"What? Because I didn't just jump up and expose myself to cover you back there?" O'Laughlin's air was equal parts innocence and incredulity. The bastard. "The risk was too high. I had to stay down, and you should have, too."
Rigsby would have scoffed if he could focus on anything other than his single-minded fury. He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak in more measured tones. No sense in upsetting…the other agents. "No. You didn't have to stay down. You sat there while Grace was in trouble and didn't do a goddamn thing to help her. You didn't even do anything to help me when I had to step in and make sure she didn't get shot. You just sat there. And protecting her, that's your job now. Your job. You need to protect her, even though she doesn't need protecting. You need to do better." He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, willing a terrifying image of Grace, on the ground, bleeding, out of his head. "You just sat there," he said again.
O'Laughlin shifted with impatience. "Listen, Rigsby, let's just call this what it is," he said, his voice calm and only a hair away from patronizing. "I know you resent the fact that we have to work together, but come on. Deal with it. Grace chose me. End of story."
"This has nothing to do with you or me. It has to do with the fact that you didn't fire a single shot from your weapon and Grace was in danger. It has to do with you sitting there watching a man with a gun get closer and closer to your fiancée without doing a goddamn thing to stop him. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep being the one to jump in the line of fire to save your girl. At some point, it's going to have to be you. Don't you see that? Don't you see that?"
By this time, the adrenaline was starting to wear off and he no longer felt the startling, icy heat of anger running through him. His posture started to droop just a little, and though he would never even consider giving O'Laughlin the satisfaction of looking defeated, he knew he looked tired. And he was. Tired of throwing himself out there for Grace when she went home to this pretty-boy agent. Tired of pretending that it didn't drive him insane with jealousy. Trying to pretend that seeing her in a goddamn wedding dress was no big deal even when all he could think about was that he should be the one waiting for her down the aisle.
He knew that his roller-coastering emotions were not just Craig's fault, but rather a product of his strained relationship with Grace. And also, probably the fact that he had just seriously wounded a man or maybe even killed him. He wondered if he ought to be more bothered by that fact, wondered if he should go over and see just what he'd done to the man who had been about to shoot Grace. He just couldn't bring himself to care.
He took a deep breath. "Listen. If you're going to work with the CBI in the field, you know you're going to have to work with Grace. If you can't watch her back on the job and go back to geing a regular couple, then you need to request a different assignment. I'm not saying this because I hate you. I don't. Grace loves you and you make her happy. That's all that matters. That you make her happy. Don't turn this into a macho pissing match when it's not. This is just me asking you to take care of someone I care for. Someone you care for."
O'Laughlin held Rigsby's eyes for a long moment. He looked away first. "Yeah. Yeah, OK."
Rigsby watched the man walk away from him and toward Grace. The couple embraced and Rigsby wanted to look away but couldn't. He was glad he hadn't.
Grace peeked over O'Laughlin's shoulder and gazed at him a long moment. "Thank you," she mouthed, before averting her eyes.
Rigsby gave a curt nod and turned away abruptly. He couldn't say that it took away the sting of jealousy, the pain of rejection or the guilt of having perhaps taken a life. It didn't make everything worth it. But it was a start.
A/N: I have a confession to make. I haven't watched the whole episode. In fact, I haven't watched most of Season 3. I don't know much about O'Laughlin or his relationship with Grace or how Rigsby's dealing with the whole thing. But I saw a few scenes of The Red Mile and the shootout was one of them. It nagged at me, and since no one else had written a reaction to this, I figured I'd humbly attempt to fill the gap myself.
This fic is un-betaed. I haven't even read it over myself. It's just something I quickly jotted down during a time when I should be writing term papers and grading essays and doing a million and one other things on the mind of a busy grad student. It might be completely out of touch with the show and what's happening in it now, and to be honest, I'm completely out of touch with fan fiction in general. But I needed to write this, and if even one person says that they feel the same way, well then, that's something.
Cheers,
lilmissnitpick