A/N: this one-shot was prompted by a discussion I had with Pyroangel32, in response to her fic The Foreseeable Future. She challenged me to write a "rebuttal" fic, so to speak, so here it is! I hope it meets with your expectations. ;) - aml

After their big announcement, Rigsby and Van Pelt retreated to their respective desks, silently agreeing to keep their heads down for the remainder of the day and stay out of Lisbon's way if at all possible. Van Pelt shut down and packed up for the day promptly at five; Rigsby still had some lingering paperwork to complete related to the firebombing incident at the construction site and stayed later.

As Rigsby approached his car in the parking deck a little after six, he hesitated before turning the key over in the ignition. It was a Wednesday, and Van Pelt typically went to a 6:30 yoga class, returning home to find him at her apartment, cooking dinner. Given the layers of tension and unease that had blanketed the office like a thick fog all afternoon, he was uncertain about what to do next. Many scenarios had run through his mind when he'd stopped to consider the possibility of coming clean to Lisbon; being left twisting in the wind because she was undecided about how to proceed was honestly not one of them. He sucked in a deep breath, deciding to bite the bullet and head over to Van Pelt's.

As he approached her front door and dug into his pocket for the spare key she'd given him, he was shocked to hear her voice calling out from the living room.

"It's unlocked."

He stepped into her foyer, shrugging out of his suit coat and hanging it in the hall closet. Van Pelt was sitting curled up into the corner of her couch, knees tucked up to her chest, lost in thought.

"I thought you'd be at class."

"I haven't been able to focus on anything all afternoon, trying to make it through class seemed like a bad idea," she said ruefully.

"Fair enough," he replied as he carefully eased down onto the couch, not taking his eyes off her. Everything about her body language screamed tension, so he thought it best to give her some space. They sat in uncomfortable silence for several long minutes. "Talk to me, Grace," he pleaded. "I need to know what's going on with you right now."

"Lovers?" she asked plaintively.

"What?" he replied, not fully understanding her question.

"Why did you tell Lisbon we're lovers?"

He was taken aback at the confusion in her voice. "It seemed like the right thing to say at the time. We just decided to do this last night, Grace. I didn't exactly prepare a speech." She continued to stare off into space.

"Isn't that what we are, Grace? You didn't exactly jump in to correct me, there." He couldn't deal with what appeared to be her indifference to his question and started pacing back and forth across the living room as he continued to sort out his thoughts out loud. "I'm made my feelings for you pretty clear, and made an idiot out of myself in the process on more than one occasion. You could have written it off by blaming it on painkillers, or hypnosis, but it was always still me, underneath. And I tried to hang back, keep my feelings in check, until I thought you were ready. I'm a little bit out on a limb here, Grace, and I'm … not a hundred percent sure you're out here with me."

Grace's response was nearly inaudible in its uncertainty. "Wayne, please sit down." She turned to face him, tucking her feet in between the couch cushions and wringing her hands. "You're right. You've been open about your feelings for me for a long time. And I thought that actions would be enough to show you how much I care about you. I thought that by pressing the issue about telling Lisbon, I was showing you that I was committed to us. I guess I underestimated how important words are to you, and I just … I can't say them yet. I'm sorry," she sighed as tears started leaking out of her eyes. She reached up to wipe them off her face defiantly.

Wayne tentatively reached over to pull her into his arms for a reassuring hug. "Grace, the last thing I want to do is pressure you into doing or saying anything you're not ready for. If it will make it easier for you, I'll stop telling you ten times a day that I love you." He felt Grace relax as she started to laugh. This is better, he thought. Maybe we can get through this. He leaned back so they were face-to-face again. "This telling Lisbon thing didn't go so well, did it?"

Grace shook her head, agreeing with his assessment. "No, it really didn't. Though in retrospect, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Cho thinks half the building knew about us."

"Yeah, I suppose not. I have to tell you though, Lisbon leaving us hanging was definitely not one of the outcomes I anticipated every time I thought about the possibility of her finding out."

"You've thought about it?" she asked quizzically.

"At least once a day, every day since the night we closed the Foster case and you dragged me into that unoccupied office," he replied, grinning lecherously at the memory of her hands running through his hair, their lips meeting in the dark, her breathless request that he come home with her. He shifted back into serious mode almost immediately. "I knew it was going to happen eventually, whether we told her ourselves, or if Jane threw us under the bus."

Grace wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. "You don't think Cho might have let the cat out of the bag eventually?"

"Nah. No reason for him to rock the boat unnecessarily. He's not that type. Plus I strongly suspect that he has a well-hidden sensitive side. The one good thing that came out of all this is the fact that Jane can't hold it over our heads any more, at least."

"That's true." She paused, lost in thought once again. "I have to be honest, I never really seriously considered the possibility that she wouldn't look the other way for us. I mean, look at all the stuff Jane gets away with. Compared to all that, us being together shouldn't be such a big deal, right?"

Rigsby stared at her in amazement, partly due to the arrogance in her statement, and partly due to her unwavering belief in Lisbon's willingness to bend rules for her entire team. "Grace, I hate to be the devil's advocate here, but realistically, you and I, we're expendable. Lisbon can find agents to replace one or the both of us, but Patrick Jane's skills are pretty unique, and he makes her look good by helping us close more cases faster. That's why Jane gets away with all the stunts he pulls."

"I guess I never thought of it that way," she replied sadly.

"We've put Lisbon in a pretty difficult position, Grace. And we've left the decision entirely out of our own hands. I should have told you this forever ago, and that's my fault, but the reason I resisted telling Lisbon for so long, was that I wanted us to have an exit strategy in place once we came clean. I wanted to be truly prepared for the possibility that one of us would have to walk away, if it came to that. We don't have that, and now everything is up in the air." He reached over to grasp her chin, tilting her face up so their faces were mere inches away from each other. "I never wanted you to think you were some secret that needed to be hidden, and if I did that, please forgive me. I just wanted us to do this when the time was right."

She climbed over into his lap, resting her head on his shoulder and tilting slightly to kiss his neck before burrowing deeper into the safety and reassurance of his embrace. "What do we do now, Wayne?"

He ran his fingers through her long, soft hair, trying valiantly to lock away the worry that they would soon be faced with a decision neither were ready to make yet.

"I don't know, Grace. I just don't know."

-fin