A/N: This chapter earns its M rating not for smut (sorry, ficlit) but for some language and definite adult themes and major angst.


Friday, 8AM

Pam Van Pelt tapped softly on her daughter's bedroom door, hoping that she wasn't disturbing anything too private between Grace and her boyfriend. Poking her head carefully in the doorway just enough so she could be heard, she decided to risk waking one or the both of them up.

"Grace? Honey, are you awake?"

Grace responded without stirring. "Yes, mom, I'm awake. What's up?" she mumbled.

"Dad and I are going to head out for a walk, then get a cup of coffee. I just didn't want you to worry if you woke up and realized we weren't here."

Grace smiled at her mother's thoughtfulness. "Thanks, Mom. What's the plan for the rest of the day?"

"Are you up for some shopping?"

"As long as we don't hit the malls before noon, sure."

"Okay. Dad and I will be back in an hour or so, I guess."

"Okay, have fun," Grace replied as she snuggled deeper under her blankets. After her mom shut the door with a soft click, she wrapped her arms tightly around Rigsby's waist and sighed contentedly. "Did you hear that? We have a whole hour to ourselves," she whispered as she started sucking hungrily on his pulse point.

Rigsby snaked his hand into her hair, tugging her head back forcefully and fusing their mouths together. "I heard. Do you have plans for this little window of private time?"

She reached back and untangled his hand from her hair, kissing his palm before resting her head on his chest. "I'm still recovering from last night, so I think I'll just stay right here and snuggle."

She felt his whole body tense as he started gently but tentatively stroking her hair. "Wayne, is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's just, I was thinking about last night."

Grace's head popped up in surprise. "Don't tell me you're regretting it now? Or backtracking on what you said?"

His grip on her tightened. "God, no, Grace. I meant every last word of what I said last night. I just …" he paused, and swallowed hard, unsure of how to proceed, "I don't even know where to start."

"How about at the beginning?"

He relaxed a tiny bit as she held him closely while he gathered his thoughts. "I love you so much, Grace. I told you last night that I'd spend the rest of my life making you feel like the only woman on Earth worth having, and I meant that. But Grace, these feelings scare the hell out of me. I didn't exactly have the greatest role models when it comes to adult relationships, you know. I don't know if I know how to be the man I want to be for you, the kind of man you deserve." He blinked repeatedly to keep the tears from flowing that were threatening to trek down his cheeks.

Grace pulled herself up into a sitting position, and shifted him around so that he was lying with his back up against her chest, cuddling him the way she might a small child, stroking his hair softly and kissing his forehead. "Wayne, are you worried that you might become like your dad? Because the mere fact that we're even having this conversation in the first place tells me that you know far more about being a man, and a potential husband and father, than he ever would have learned. You're a good man, and you have a good heart, and that's all I need to know."

He tilted his head back to look up at her, upside-down, seeing the complete confidence she had in him, and knew the time had come to fill Grace in on the rest of his story. The parts he'd kept well-hidden, only to be revealed when and if he ever found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. This was it, a make-or-break moment.

"Grace, you haven't heard the whole story about my parents, and how my dad ended up in prison." He sat up, reaching over the edge of the bed to grab his boxers and t-shirt. He tugged on the boxers, and handed over the t-shirt to her. She obligingly pulled it on over her head, understanding instinctively that this was a conversation he wanted to have without distractions. She tucked her knees up to her chest, tugging the fabric over them, and sat back against her headboard, waiting for him to continue.

"You know about my dad's criminal record, of course. Have you ever actually looked up the records?"

She was puzzled by the question; he often teased her about her inquisitiveness, but it had honestly never occurred to her to check on his father's criminal record. The specifics hadn't really seemed that important. "No. I would never have done that without asking you first."

He swallowed hard before continuing. "Most of the early stuff on his record, before I was born, is relatively small-time bullshit – larceny, grand theft, that kind of thing. Stuff you'd expect from a low-level gang thug. It wasn't until he started rising up the ranks that it really started to get bad. Drug trafficking and prostitution, mostly. If he wasn't high, he was drunk. And when he was drunk, that's when he started throwing punches. When he was around, at least. It was easier when he was in jail; then I could just pretend he didn't exist. We didn't always have much money, but Mom was a lot less stressed out when Dad wasn't around, and at least he wasn't hitting her, so we did the best we could. And she sent me off to Florida to be with my grandparents during the summers when I was little, so I wasn't around on the off chance that he'd somehow gotten out on bail, or sprung by a parole board that didn't give a damn about the arrest record as long as your arm. Because he didn't have any assault convictions on his record, he wasn't considered a violent offender."

Tears started streaming uncontrollably down Grace's face. She saw the faraway look in Wayne's eyes and knew she wouldn't be able do or say anything to reach him, to bring him back to her, and their present, until he'd poured out every last bit of this story, even if it wrecked him. She waited patiently, carefully eyeing his hands, which he repeatedly clenched into and out of tight fists as he was talking.

"I got home early one night after school, I must have been 14 or 15, I guess. Mom was working her night shift job, so I knew she wouldn't be home. I didn't expect to see him sitting on the front porch, high as a kite and equally shitfaced." The venom with which he spat out the word him made her sick to her stomach, but she kept her emotions in check; she needed to be strong for him. There would be a time for her to deal with all this later.

"He wouldn't even let me in the house. The second he saw me walk up, he got up off the porch and started pacing, ranting and raving. He was so out of it I didn't even understand most of what he was saying, but all of a sudden he turned and looked at me, and I saw clarity just wash over his face. Then he hit me square in the jaw with a punch I should have seen coming. It was at least five minutes before I could even register that I was on the ground and he was beating me to a pulp. The entire time, all I could hear him say was how I ruined everything, just by existing. That he never should have gotten together with Mom, that she was a whore, that if he'd known he was just going to knock her up, he'd never have gotten drunk enough to want to fuck her in the first place, he'd have been more careful. Mom got home just in time to find him pinning me to the ground, his hands wrapped around my neck. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, yelling for our neighbors to call an ambulance. And that's when he stopped wailing on me and turned on her." Wayne had gone pale as a ghost and completely stonefaced by this point; Grace had never seen him so emotionless.

"By the time the ambulance arrived, a pretty big crowd had formed around our little front yard. Two of our neighbors were struggling to keep my dad in check, my mom was unconscious and she had a broken nose, three broken ribs and a shattered cheekbone. Dad broke one of my arms and I had a collapsed lung. The cops who showed up had been to our house before, but Mom sent them away every time, insisting it was a family thing, and she didn't want to press charges. This time, they had no choice, and they arrested him on the spot. When the judge saw the photos of us from the hospital, he refused to set bail. Dad didn't go to trial for another couple of months, and Mom refused to testify against him. She didn't want to risk the gang turning on her. But I wanted to be done with him, so I took the stand. The transcripts were sealed because I was a minor at the time, but my testimony was enough to convict him on two counts of attempted murder. I sent my own father to prison, Grace." He buried his face in his hands so she wouldn't see the tears running down his cheeks, but the uncontrollable shaking and heaving was a dead giveaway.

Grace crawled across the bed and climbed carefully into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, whispering softly in his ear and rubbing his back soothingly. "Wayne, it's okay. You did the right thing. You were strong for yourself, and for your mom. It's okay, baby, that was a long time ago, and it's all over." She started to rock them gently, hoping the rhythmic motion would help calm him. She soon felt his tears soaking the shoulder of the t-shirt she was wearing, and couldn't hold back her own sobs any longer. She grieved for the little boy who'd never known what it was like to have a normal family; for the teenager, forced to grow up too fast and too soon; and for the grown man in her arms, baring a long-since buried piece of his soul, and forcing himself to relive the most hellish time of his life so she could fully understand how far he'd come.

She knew, just as instinctively as she could recall her own name, that no other woman had ever gotten close enough to learn any of this information. The egotistical side of her swelled with pride that he'd chosen her to share this with; that was immediately shouted down by her compassionate side, horrified that he'd ever had to live through the nightmare in the first place. Eventually, his tears subsided, and his breathing evened out. He pulled back, daring to look up at her, and when she saw the look of sheer astonishment on his face, the waterworks started up all over again.

"You're still here?" he asked incredulously, wiping her tears away with his thumbs and pulling her into a bone-crushing hug, touching every inch of her that he could reach, as though if he let go, she would magically vanish.

She gripped his face tightly in both hands and pulled his head away from her shoulder to make sure he could see her, and understand that she wasn't a mirage. "Wayne, I'm not going anywhere. I promise. I love you so much, and none of this information changes any of that."

He choked back a rueful laugh. "It probably should. Any sane woman would have gone running for the hills after hearing all that."

"Fortunately for you, I'm crazy about you, so you don't have to worry about me running anywhere." She saw a slight smile crack on his face and let out a huge sigh of relief that her tiny attempt at levity worked.

"It breaks my heart to know that you had to go through any of it. But knowing all of this …. it all makes me love you even more, Wayne. Because now I understand more fully how you came to be the man you are. Why you do the things you do. I know that you believe that you could be like your father, but I don't believe that at all. Want to know why?" He nodded. "Your father was a coward, Wayne. A man who hid behind drugs and booze and violence, blamed other people for his failures and never took any responsibility for his own actions. He never cared about anyone but himself. You are none of those things, and you never will be. You stood up to him, stood up for yourself and your mom, even though it was probably the hardest thing you will ever have to do in your life. That requires a kind of strength that I cannot even fathom being able to possess. You are kind, and loving, and you respect the people who matter most to you. Those things alone make you a hundred times the person your father ever was." She kissed his temple, nuzzling his cheek and started running her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, debating whether to ask the one question that had been nagging at her.

"Wayne?"

"Hmm?"

"How did your mom react to your decision to testify in your dad's trial?"

He sat back to study her, surprised and more than a little bit impressed that she'd picked up on the one detail he'd deliberately omitted. "We barely spoke for six months. He was moved to Corcoran after he was sentenced, and she went to visit him a few times. I flat-out refused to go with her. To this day, I still don't understand what they saw in each other. I've given up trying. Anyway, she'd gone up there one Saturday for a visit, and I stayed home, and the whole day all I could think about was why he was so much more important to her than I was, why my feelings didn't seem to matter to her. I got myself so worked up about it that she'd barely walked in the door when she got home before I exploded. She just stood there and took it, Grace. Like she deserved every ounce of poison and bile I could throw at her. When I finally realized that I was reacting just like Dad had done, I just sat down in the middle of our living room and started bawling. I don't think I've ever cried that hard before or since."

Grace took both of his hands in hers and settled them in her lap, gently massaging his palms. She noticed that his color had gone from gray to green and she did not want him stressing out any further, potentially making himself sick over this conversation if he didn't have to. "Wayne, we don't have to talk about this anymore if you don't want to," she said reassuringly.

"I have to, Grace. You need to know everything, and if I don't get this all out, I may never have the guts to do it again." She squeezed his hands tightly and nodded that he should continue. "Once I calmed down, Mom explained almost everything to me. She never could explain why she was attracted to Dad – she always said it was just 'one of those things.' She told me about her visits – Dad would let her come see him, but she always ended up doing all the talking. She would show him pictures of me, clippings about my soccer games, anything to find out if it ever occurred to him that he had a son he should be proud of. She had finally decided that day that he was a lost cause and she promised never to visit him again. I asked her why he'd told me that I 'ruined everything' and that's when she started crying."

Grace had a sickening feeling that this story was only going to get worse and fought hard to quell the angry bile rising in her throat.

"She and Dad had a huge fight the day she told him she was pregnant. She'd hoped that the news would push him into going straight, but that completely backfired. He walked out, hopped on his bike and she didn't hear one word about him for another four months, when someone from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department called to inform her that he was in jail again. She refused to post his bail; by that point, she was already making plans to put me up for adoption once I was born. My grandparents got wind of that somehow – I'm not really sure how exactly, Mom claimed that she never told them – and my grandmother basically moved to California to talk her out of giving me up, and she helped raise me until I was six months old."

Grace covered her mouth with her hands, breathing in deeply and steadily to keep herself from hyperventilating. She was dumbstruck at this final piece of information; Wayne had never made much of a secret about the fact that he and his mother were not that close, but she would never in a million years have guessed at the reason why. She was torn between a deep-seated resentment towards both of his parents at their treatment of their only child, and amazement that he'd made it through to adulthood, relatively well-adjusted, against all of the odds stacked against him.

"Grace?" His voice quavered. "Say something?"

She climbed over and settled herself in his lap wrapping her limbs around him and hugging him to her as tightly as she could. "I don't even know what to say, baby. 'I'm sorry' doesn't even begin to cover it. I could tell you that I hate both your parents for everything they did and didn't do for you, but the fact is that they made you, so I can't hate them entirely. I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave and just make this all go away, so you'll never have to deal with it again."

"In all honesty, Grace, I don't intend to tell anyone the whole story ever again. You're the first, last and only person who will ever need to know all of it."

"That's a responsibility I'm willing to take on. You should never have to bear all this alone." She eased them both carefully backwards onto the pillows, tugging the bedspread over their bodies and snuggling into his side. "You look exhausted. Try to go back to sleep for a little bit?"

His eyes closed not long after his head hit the pillow and he turned over onto his stomach, wrapping one arm around her waist and burying his head in the crook of her shoulder.

"I love you, Grace. Love you so much," he mumbled as he drifted off back to sleep.

She stroked his face and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "I love you too, Wayne. I promise you, I'm not going anywhere."


A/N, part two: This is really not where I had intended to place this big, important conversation between these two, but I realized that it had to happen sooner rather than later. The backstory I've given Rigsby is based upon nothing more than what we've already seen from him so far, and my own extrapolation of what could have happened to set him on his path. Any and all comments are welcome.