A/N: So, this is a very short chapter. A sniplet if you will. To be honest, my muse has left me. I don't know where she went. I think she is stuck somewhere walking up to Jane's house in 'For Every Evil' LOL. But I'm trying to get her back. Anyway, this story has been rolling around in my head for a long time, actually since Bloodshot last season. This is a Grace/Jane story (now whether it be a romance or a friendship, I ain't tellin' yet LOL). So be warned. And yes, I realize that this A/N is longer than the chapter. It will get longer.
Disclaimer: I own my new car. I own my house (well I'm paying on my house). I don't own the Mentalist. If I did, I'd have a bigger car and a bigger house.
The Past
Grace's Story
Chapter 1: Prologue
I have to say, things hadn't ended up like I had expected. Especially not on this day. This day which had years ago brought me such joy and happiness, now brought with it depression and tears along with a lifetime full of 'what might have been's.
I am happy most days. Or at least, I can pretend to be happy. I can plaster a smiling grin on my normally pale skin, place some makeup to conceal the black circles beneath my eyes, and pull my long red hair back into a pretty silhouette. Some days, I can even convince myself that I'm happy. On those days, I cry the hardest at night.
The people I work with think they know me, but they don't. Not even the amazing Kreskin himself, Patrick Jane, realized exactly what laid beneath my fragile exterior. Oh sure, Jane thought he knew everything about me. He even commented one time about how I had a trauma sometime in my past that I had never spoken to anyone about. And he was right, but not even he had sensed what that trauma really was, or how much it eerily parallelled his own traumatic nightmare.
And not even I would have imagined a week ago... a day ago... heck even a few hours ago, that the same Patrick Jane who thought he knew so much about me, would be holding on to me in my bed, filled with a new understanding for my pain and loss, holding back his tears along with me.
But the end isn't, of course, the beginning of this tale. To understand how we got here, we have to go back. Truthfully, if told correctly, we should go back about 14 years to when I was fifteen and met a young (and vigorously handsome) Tristan Saunders. But for our purposes, we'll just go back nearly twenty-four hours to a little after eight a.m. when I entered CBI headquarters on the ninth anniversary of the worst experience of my life.