Author's Note. This chapter, between T.K. and Leland, borders on an 'M' rating due to graphic descriptions of domestic violence. If you are triggered by such, you may want to skip to the next chapter.


It was the first day that T.K. Stottlemeyer had gone to work in her downtown office since the shooting and she ended up purposefully leaving work an hour early solely to check on Leland and see how he had done without her. Jared was at work and Max in school, and by mutual decision the couple decided to try leaving Leland at home alone, mainly because neither wanted a repeat of his afternoon with Monk.

Leland had expressed a few choice words after his earlier experience with Adrian 'babysitting' him and insisted that he would be fine staying by himself. His wife could go to work and not worry about him, it was only going to be for a few hours - not that it stopped him from complaining when she tried to leave that morning. T.K. loved her husband but she wasn't sure how either of them could survive five more weeks of this.

As soon as she opened the front door, T.K. looked into the living room and just as she suspected, Leland was lying back in the recliner exactly where she'd left him that morning. She'd set up a small table next to the chair that he used for the remote, his cell phone, and the cordless landline. A bag of chips lay at his side and added to the table was a plate that she assumed once held his lunch.

T.K. laughed. "Have you moved from that spot at all today?"

Leland turned at the sound of her voice in an attempt to face her and winced in pain. T.K immediately set down her purse, going back to the kitchen and bringing back one of his medication bottles. "Here," she said quietly, measuring out two of the small pills.

He quickly swallowed them and took a drink of water. Alcohol was strictly off-limits for the next couple of weeks while he was taking a certain medication, something T.K. seemed happy about. He wasn't going to put up a fuss about it because the medicines he was on did make everything hurt less. Besides, they had done enough arguing in recent months. "You told me not to exert myself," he said, "multiple times, might I add. And then you come home and wonder why I haven't moved from the couch? You can't have it both ways, dear."

T.K. raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad to see you're in a better mood," she laughed, picking up the plate and the chips and turning to take them back to the kitchen.

Leland grabbed her hand before she walked away and she turned to face him.

"Look, I'm sorry." he stated. "You've been a great sport putting up with me the way you have, and I'm happy to have you home."

T.K. smiled and squeezed his hand. "That's better. Let me go put this dish in the dishwasher and then I'll come back and we can talk for a while."

Within a few minutes she had cleared off the table and placed the chips back in the pantry. Meanwhile, Leland moved himself from the recliner to the couch. He was getting stronger and more self-sufficient every day but, even so, she was careful when she came back into the room and sat down, snuggling into his side.

"Did you do anything today besides watch television?" she asked.

He took the remote and pointed it towards the television, pushing a few buttons to bring up their DVR library and then another to show her the settings for future shows to record.

"I went back and found all those episodes of Grey's Anatomy for you that Monk deleted. They're all set to record this weekend, one of the channels is having a marathon."

"Oh, aren't you the sweetest." She said, kissing his cheek.

He put his arm around her and continued. "And, I tried to call Monk this afternoon. Thought maybe we could talk or he could come over for a little while to keep me company - as long as he let me work the remote this time. He said he couldn't today because he was busy working on something for Natalie."

Just by the tone of his voice, T.K. knew that she should tread carefully. "Well, honey, that's understandable. Julie was just cleared of murder charges. She spent two months in prison for something she didn't do and she was hurt terribly while she was there. Monk and Natalie just want to make up for lost time with her, that's all."

"I know that," was his sullen reply. "You're not telling me anything I don't know, T.K., and yes, I am aware of how pathetic this sounds. But, I'm bored staying home doing nothing and you're back at work. I'm not so far gone that I'd call Randy, but I've called Monk three times this week and he's always busy. It's not how it used to be."

"First of all, you always have me," she murmured quietly, tilting her head up to kiss him. He lowered his head.

"Leland," she whispered as she pulled back. "It's okay to admit that you miss your friend. We've all been through a lot since Julie got arrested, especially you and him and Natalie. It's going to take time for everything to get back to normal. Do you think it was easy for me to get up the courage to meet Natalie for coffee that day? It wasn't," she admitted quietly. "I've only been a part of this group for three years. You and Natalie have worked together for seven and you and Adrian go back so much farther than that."

"Decades." He noted.

She reached her hand out and stroked his hair. "Honey, if it helps, Adrian misses you, too." She smiled. "Natalie mentioned something about it the other day."

They sat together on the couch in contented silence for a long time, T.K. watching her husband as he quietly processed everything she had just told him. She didn't care that he wasn't talking because for that horrible and lonely week in the hospital she worried that he would die and she wouldn't ever have the opportunity to talk to him again.

But after a while, she carefully pushed herself away from him and sat up, sitting cross-legged on the couch so she was able to face him. There was no better time to do this and she had to do it today before she talked herself out of it.

"Leland," she whispered, clearing her throat so she could sound surer of herself, even if she didn't feel it.

"As…as long as we're confessing things, can it be my turn now?"

Her husband looked past her towards the microwave clock in the kitchen and he even picked up his cell phone to double-check time. Heaven help him, he was turning into Monk. But it was five-fifteen and even with football practice Max should have been home by now. "Sure, sweetheart; but, before you start…did you tell Max that he could go somewhere after practice?"

T.K. nodded and if he had been paying better attention, he would have noticed the uncertain look on her face. "I asked Jared if he would pick him up from football and Max is spending the night at Jared's apartment. Jared said he'll get him to school in the morning. I know I should have asked you first if that was okay for me to do."

"No, no, you're his stepmother, of course that's okay," he assured her. He saw how relieved she looked and all at once he knew what that look was about. Five months ago, when he'd been so frustrated at Monk and Natalie about their reaction to the situation with Julie that he'd let his frustration at work follow him home and he'd screamed at his wife to mind her own business when it came to his sons. He'd known it was stupid of him to say the second he'd said it and the look on her face when she'd slammed the door and left the house that night haunted him. She was the best thing that happened to his life since his divorce from Karen and he never, ever wanted to hurt her. But he had.

"T.K., I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Telling you to mind your own business and let me deal with raising my sons was so disrespectful to you and our marriage and I didn't mean it. I don't want you to think that you aren't an equal partner to me or don't have any say about Max."

"Thank you." She replied, softly. "I think we've all spent too much time these last five months saying things we don't mean." She reached for the remote and turned off the television. "Leland, I…I appreciate all of that and I appreciate your apology, I'm sorry, too, that I was too stubborn and hurt to hear you out before, but…I sent Max to Jared's for a reason. You and I need to have a talk. A real one without interruptions."

Leland stayed quiet. He'd never had this talk with Karen. His ex-wife had showed up at his office with divorce papers with no warning and he hoped T.K. wasn't about to do the same thing.

T.K.'s hesitant and soft voice interrupted his thoughts. "I know everything got put on hold between us when you got suspended…but, when you were in the hospital and…and I thought you were dying, I promised myself that I would talk to you and finally explain everything and maybe you'd understand why I haven't been a good wife at all lately."

He saw then that her eyes were wet with unshed tears and he reached out his hand to carefully wipe away the stray tears that had fallen. He opened his mouth to speak but she shook her head.

"Don't try and tell me that I've been a good wife because I know I haven't, and it's not your fault because you didn't know, but there are some things you need to know about me that I should have told you before we even got engaged. I…I did have reasons for not telling you and please don't ask me yet what they are, but I know that it's only fair that you know now. I'm not the only one in this marriage, you're here too, and anything that happens to me or has happened to me affects you."

Leland searched for the right words to say, knowing that this, whatever this talk was about, was more serious than even he had anticipated. It was about her, not about their relationship. Finally, he settled on something gentle and soft, hopeful to get her to smile. "Did you rehearse that in the car on the way home?"

She gave him a barely-evident smile but it was something. "Yes, Leland, I have rehearsed this conversation in my head so many times and it never gets any easier."

"Trudy," he said quietly, and immediately she looked at him, one of the few times in their entire relationship that he used her given name. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Leland waited patiently for her to find whatever courage she needed to continue and when time passed and no words were immediately forthcoming, he reached out and touched her cheek, his thumb tracing her jawline. "Something is hurting you. I don't know if it has to do with me or if it has to do with Natalie because you won't tell me. You don't have to be scared. We're a team, you and me, please don't shut me out. Whatever's going on, I can help you. I want to help you. I'm your husband, it's pretty much my job to help you." He took her hand in his and she immediately grabbed it as if it was a lifeline.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, almost as if he hadn't even spoken. "I'm so, so sorry. I've done all of this wrong, ever since the first time you told me you loved me and you saw a long-term future with me. I messed everything up between us so badly, and I'm just so very sorry that I've hurt you."

"I love you, T.K.," was his automatic response. "Nothing's messed up so badly we can't fix it. But you need to just talk to me. I deserve to have my wife talk to me."

T.K's grip on her husband's hand got tighter and after a very long beat of uncomfortable silence she quietly spoke. "Do you remember that night a few days before the Policeman's Ball, when I was looking for information about Steven Albright and what he might have done to Caroline Shelton?"

Leland tensed. He remembered all of it and not just the part about Natalie and Monk almost being murdered by Albright. He remembered the night T.K. showed him the restraining order Shelton had taken out against her ex-fiancé and he remembered how strongly his wife had reacted to the idea that Albright had hurt the woman he had claimed to love. He remembered how fiercely she'd tried to protect Natalie from the same circumstances happening to her. He remembered how his wife had nightmares the entire week after the showdown at Natalie's the night of the Policeman's Ball, when Monk had been shot and Natalie terrorized by her ex-boyfriend. The nightmares were so vivid and so intense that she woke up each night screaming and wouldn't do anything but cling to him until she fell asleep again. He remembered how she never wanted to talk to him about what the nightmares were about, saying that he wouldn't understand and she couldn't talk about it.

He remembered with a sudden and sickening clarity the horrified look on his wife's face that night of dinner at Natalie's when Natalie had taunted her about not telling him about someone named James, and he remembered that night when T.K. had let it slip that she had dated someone named James in college. And all of a sudden, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place without his wife having to even say a word and Leland was so ashamed that he hadn't figured this out before now. No wonder Monk was damned near four times the detective he would ever be, even though he was commander and Monk a consultant.

Leland looked inquisitively towards his wife while rubbing the back of his neck. He was determined to give her the respect to do this at her pace; so, he nodded. "I remember. You, uh, you had some bad dreams."

T.K. looked down at the fabric of their couch for an unimaginable amount of time and when she finally gathered enough of her courage to look at him, she blurted it out before she lost her nerve.

"The reason I had nightmares after Steven Albright showed up at Natalie's house was because it reminded me of the night James showed up at my apartment. Leland, when I was younger, I had my own Steven Albright. Only mine was worse. He was so much worse."

Leland's eyes darkened with furious anger and she quickly pleaded with him not to interrupt her, that this conversation was going to be hard enough for her to get through as it was.

"His…his name was James Goodwin." She said softly as her husband slowly, carefully stroked her hand with his thumb, noticing how his wife's soft voice faltered even more and all she'd said so far was his name.

"I met him towards the end of college. I didn't date much when I was in school so he was my first real boyfriend. He was my first…everything." He knew what she meant by everything and found it hard to believe that she hadn't dated much in college but knew better than to say it out loud, especially now. He only waited for her to continue. "He was smart and kind and funny and out of everyone in the world he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He…he was everything I ever dreamed my first boyfriend would be - until he wasn't."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her other hand not letting go of Leland's for anything. "I was twenty-two years old and I was so….I was so damned naïve and stupid when it came to guys. He was so charming in the beginning and he swept me off my feet. We barely knew each other but six months after we met, we were living together. I wanted to live with him." She took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. "I was already so dependent on him and I didn't even realize it," she whispered, almost to herself.

Leland forced the detective side of him not to react because he had a feeling she hadn't realized she'd said that part out loud.

"We - we got an apartment together and it was fine for a little while. I…I was in love with him, Leland, and he made me feel like I was alive and when it was good between us it was really good. But…things changed when we started living together. He…he would buy me flowers when we were dating and as soon as I moved in with him, he stopped doing things like that. He told me that he didn't have to anymore. He did his part to win me over and got me to move in with him and sleep with him, and he said I was a 'stupid idiot' for expecting him to be nice like that all the time. He told me he didn't know what he ever saw in me."

Leland Stottlemeyer opened his mouth and reluctantly closed it again, his wife's quiet plea not to interrupt echoing in his head. Already the cop in him didn't like where this story was going and even more importantly, the husband inside of him didn't like it.

T.K. blinked and used the sleeve of her blouse to wipe her eyes. "He picked me up from work the next day and he brought flowers. He took me out to dinner at my favorite little restaurant. He said everything that a stupid twenty-two-year-old needed to hear; and, I forgave him.

But then there were nights that I had to work late in the library for a project for one of my journalism assignments and he got so angry that I wasn't home to make him dinner. He didn't like it that I was working late with other guys and one afternoon when he picked me up at the library, he…he told me that I wasn't smart enough or good enough to be a writer and it was only for my own good that he was telling me."

She blinked back more tears. "He said that the only hope I had of getting a good grade on the project and in that class was to…spread my legs and sleep with the professor. He told me that I was pretty and that for the greater good he was willing to share me because he didn't want to hear me whine about getting a bad grade."

Leland narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. His loving grip on his wife's hand got tighter. "That son of a bitch," he said under his breath.

"Hearing him talk that way about me disgusted me and I told him so. But he just said that I was being disrespectful to him and that I didn't appreciate everything he was trying to do for me. He was just trying to help me make it in a career I had no aptitude for, he said, and when I told him that I wouldn't tolerate him talking to me like that he…he shoved me. He pinned me against the inside of the car door and said that that was the last time he took that kind of backtalk from me and that he needed to teach me how a woman was supposed to behave towards her man." She started to sob, quiet at first but it didn't take long for her sobbing to get louder. "I…I tried to get away from him, Leland, I really, really did, but he smacked me across the face and then he hit me."

Leland's eyes were full of sympathy and that was almost more than she could bear, she didn't want his pity. "I hope you decked him a good one," he muttered, darkly. "And I hope it hurt."

"I told him to stop the car and let me out then told him we were through and I'd come back for my things when he was at work. I stayed with one of my friends that night." T.K. lowered her eyes in shame. "He called me so many times the next few days after that, begging me to talk to him. He did everything to win me back. He said that he was stressed out at work and he didn't mean to take it out on me, that he was drunk when he said all of those things and he never would have talked to me like that if he was sober. I was too dumb to realize it at the time that he shouldn't have been driving me anywhere if he was drunk and that was more than enough reason to break up with him."

T.K. could hardly look at her husband for what he must be thinking of her then. "I did love him. I loved him so much and he promised me he'd never hit me again or drink like that again. So, I…I came back home and I went back to him." She looked up at Leland, suddenly, with frightened eyes. "He swore to me he'd never hit me again! He swore it, Leland, he swore to me he wouldn't!"

Until he did, Leland thought.

As the police commander of the SFPD homicide division, Stottlemeyer lost count in the last thirty years the number of times he and Randy saw domestic abuse victims show up as case files because they believed their boyfriend when he said he'd never hurt them again. But this wasn't a case file on his desk. This was his wife, his sweet and loving wife, weeping in front of him admitting to him that twenty-five years ago she had been in a relationship with a man that abused her. Leland was grateful his gun was safely locked away in the hall closet. He didn't think he would be able to trust himself with it if it wasn't.

He gently reached forward the hand that wasn't secure holding hers and gently stroked his wife's hair, as she slowly lifted her head. Carefully, so not to scare her, he moved his hand to wipe away her tears; and, when she looked at him, she saw not the sadness and pity she expected to see, but unconditional love and trust and support, and she began to cry even harder. Leland continued to tenderly caress her, allowing her all the time in the world that she needed to cry.

Eventually, she wiped her tears with her sleeve and was able to continue.

"Well, as you can imagine, because I'm sure you've heard this story before in your line of work, he lied. He hit me again, and again, and he'd never tell me what I was doing wrong, so I didn't know what was going to set him off. I stopped talking to my parents and I stopped spending so much time with my friends. He'd tell me my friends were stupid and I didn't need to be paying attention to them when I was supposed to be focusing all my attention on him and because I wanted to keep him happy, so he wouldn't hurt me, I stopped talking to all of my friends, but one. My entire life revolved around James because that was the way he wanted it to be." She blinked. "I tried so hard to be good for him but he started beating me.

Leland, I tried to leave him so many times, believe me, I did, but I…I didn't have anywhere to go. He cut me off from my parents, from my friends, I didn't have any money because he always took it from me, and…and I knew that if I tried to leave and he found me….it was easier not to fight him. It was always worse if I fought back. He said that I was his woman, that it was my fault he was hurting me because I was so bad."

It was Leland's thirty years of police training and only that thirty years of police training that allowed him to not outwardly show the deadly rage boiling inside of him for what this James Goodwin had done to the younger version of his wife. And it was that same police training that told him that as much as he wanted to, he shouldn't use his resources at the station to find where James Goodwin lived and take vengeance on this bastard for what he had done.

By the haunted look in his wife's eyes Leland knew there was more. He didn't want there to be more. He wasn't sure that he could take it. But T.K. was making herself so vulnerable in front of him in order to tell him all of this and he wasn't going to betray her.

"We went on like that for a year and a half and I became an expert in excuses and using makeup to hide bruises. He'd always threaten me that if anyone ever saw anything on me, he'd punish me. I - I knew what that meant."

Without a word she pulled back the sleeve of her blouse where there was a good-sized scar running the length of her shoulder. He tentatively reached out to touch her. He'd seen that scar before, of course, and he even remembered the one and only time he'd asked where it came from. Now he knew.

"You asked me where that came from," she whispered. "He was mad at me…the house wasn't clean enough after he got home from work…he hit me with the handle of one of the big pans we used to make soup. It was a nice one, too," she sniffled. "He wanted to…you know." she struggled to say the word, but Leland knew that she meant . "I never had the option to say no if I was tired or just if I didn't want to…he grabbed me around the waist and he dragged me to the couch and…."

T.K. began to cry so hard she couldn't talk, and it was more than enough for Leland to whisper through a quiet voice rough with emotion that he was going to hold her now, if that was all right. She could only nod, and he wrapped his arms around her as she pressed herself as close against him as she could. He held her that way for the longest time, pressing soft kisses to the top of her head and running his fingers through her hair. All the while he reassured her that he was there, everything was all right, that no one was going to hurt her ever again. He rocked her until he felt her moving against him and soon enough, she sat up and blew her nose into a tissue that he handed her, wiping her eyes with her arm and telling him there was more she needed to tell him.

"T.K.," he said quietly. "Honey, you don't have to tell me everything today if you don't want to. We can..."

She shook her head so fast and so hard that tears splashed onto his shirt. "I was so scared to file rape charges against him that I never even thought about it. It…we were in a small town in Georgia and he had friends everywhere that would believe him over me, and he said that if I even thought about leaving him or telling anyone what happened, he would kill me."

Her lip quivering, she looked up at the ceiling for a very long time before she looked at her husband, knowing that what she said next would change everything, but hopefully he would understand why she had responded the way she had, to him, to Natalie, to everything. "And then…I started getting sick. Every morning like clockwork. Stupid me didn't figure it out until I realized I'd missed my period."

Leland rubbed the back of his neck. How horrified and scared she must have been, and every part of him wished he'd known her back then so he could have helped her. "T.K., I don't know what to…"

She wordlessly took the tissue he handed her and wiped her eyes, crumpling the Kleenex in one hand and gripping his hand with the other. "I didn't tell him. Maybe…maybe that was wrong of me but I didn't care. He…he wanted to have sex the night after I found out and when I told him I didn't want to he started hitting me, and for the first time in a long time I fought back. Because there…there was a little baby growing inside of me that I loved no matter how it…came to exist…and it was my job to protect it. And…and that was the night I left."

For the first time since she'd started this conversation, since she'd started telling her husband all about James, Leland noticed that she was sitting a little straighter and holding eye contact with him a little longer, almost as though she knew she was getting to the first part of the story she could be proud of. "I - I called the only friend I had left, and he helped me. He wanted me to stay with him, but I wouldn't because James knew where he lived and I knew he'd be so pissed when he woke up the next morning and I was gone. He'd probably come straight to his house and look for my car then kill us both. My friend had been saving money for me and he gave me $300 and found me a hotel room a few towns away and he told me to pay with cash."

Leland wanted to know the name of this friend so he could buy him a beer to thank him for saving his wife. "So, there wouldn't be a record of where you stayed." He noted.

T.K. rewarded him with a hint of a smile. "He told me he'd been waiting for me to call him to get out for two years. He would have gone with me but he didn't want to endanger me more. So, I got in my car and I drove. I went to the hotel and I stayed there a few nights while I decided what to do." She wiped her eyes. "Sleeping in that crummy hotel was the best night's sleep I'd had in almost two years." Her eyes shined bright with pride. "I quit my job and left the state. I didn't care where I ended up. I just kept driving until I got far enough away that I didn't think he could find me. I rented the cheapest apartment I could find and stayed there for a while, while I figured out what to do next."

She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and looked at her husband proudly. "I wanted that baby more than anything and I was going to make it work, somehow. I was going to learn how to be somebody's mom and I was going to figure it out. And I…gosh, I hated myself for being so stupid for staying with him for so long."

"You loved him for a long time," Leland said, quietly. "He found someone that he could control and make dependent on him. He found someone that hadn't dated before so didn't know what to look for and by the time he started to abuse you, you were already isolated from your family and your friends. He was damn good at gaslighting you and manipulating you."

T.K. swallowed. "Is that my husband talking or the detective talking?"

He squeezed her hand, gently. "The detective in me, the homicide detective, is telling you that the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic abuse is when they finally go through with leaving the situation. You were very brave, so much braver than you ever thought you were." He let go of her hand and wiped the tears away that rolled down her cheeks. "And your husband is telling you that you were all of twenty-two or twenty-three years old and that you had to make some hard choices to protect yourself and your baby, and that by leaving him you showed so much strength and so much courage that I couldn't even begin to imagine how scared you were. Your husband is telling you that he is so damn proud of you for doing what you needed to do to protect yourself and to survive. You are not stupid, and I don't want to hear you say it again that you are. Please, Trudy."

She looked down and shook her head and the tears began to flow again. When she finally, slowly, looked up at him, she was sobbing. There was a specific pain in her eyes that wasn't there before.

She sobbed so hard that she hiccupped, and any words she said now came in between heart-wrenching gasping sounds. "I…I was seven months pregnant when he found me. I don't know how he found me, but he was there waiting for me one day when I got home from work. I was...bigger...and...h-he looked at me and he knew.

He had a gun and he made me go inside. He…he locked the door from the inside and he hit me so hard that I fell backwards and…I knew he was there to kill me. I…I tried to run but, seven months pregnant so that was hard to do, and he caught me and he got me on the floor and he had his hands around my throat…he…he was on top of me and his knee was pressing on my stomach really hard…"

It was a very long time before she spoke, and her voice was as quiet and full of pain as he'd ever heard.

"I don't remember anything after that. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital and there was a doctor telling me that my…that my baby hadn't survived, and that if I hadn't been found when I was that I would have died." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I remember that I wished I had died. James got what he wanted. He found a way to kill me without actually killing me."

She didn't have to tell him that this was the first time she'd ever gotten up the courage to tell this story to anyone. He knew it by the way her entire body shook and her voice came out in short, shuddering gasps. And, for the second time in less than an hour she broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.

Leland immediately caught her as she fell into him, burying her face in his shoulder, gripping the bottom of his shirt in a death-grip. His heart hurt for what she had been through but he was in awe of her quiet strength and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the strongest woman he'd ever known. For the longest time all he did was hold her as she cried. There was nothing he could say to make this easier or make this better for her and she was re-living the horrible memories and the pain all over again, just because she thought he deserved to know because he was married to her. He didn't know what to say to that.

T.K.'s eyes stayed focused on the small patch of his shirt that she held in her fist, but she stopped crying and took a few deep, shuddering breaths to focus herself.

"The police caught him a couple of weeks after I was released from the hospital and they said they wanted me to testify against him, but I didn't have to if I thought it would be too hard. But I needed…I needed the distraction…somewhere I found all the self-respect and the courage he'd chipped away from me for those last two years and I did it. I testified about everything. It…it should all be in court records but it would all be under Katherine Jensen…he always called me Katherine so that's what I went by…you probably could look it up in the police records but I'd rather you not. I testified about all of the abuse and all of the times he beat me and he raped me. They...they convicted him of attempted murder and for killing the baby. He got life in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years."

She slowly looked up at Leland. "The main reason I'm telling you that part because his twenty-five years ends next year. He said that if he got out, he would come back for me. For months after he was convicted, I was harassed by his family and his friends said that I deserved it because the baby probably wasn't even his." T.K. quickly shook her head when she saw how Leland was quick to react to that. "The only way I would testify was if the prosecution agreed that if he ever made parole, I would be notified so I can prepare myself and get a restraining order for me and any family I might have." Her eyes watered. "Now my family includes you and Max and Jared. I don't want James to find me and hurt any of you."

He was quiet. "With your permission, someday, I'd like to look him up in our database and make some calls. I can probably even find out how he's behaving as a prisoner to see if he's even a good candidate for parole, when he's up for it next year. If he's not, then you won't have to worry about it."

T.K. smiled and hugged her knees to her chest. "I'd like that very much, thank you for offering to do that for me. But…the other reason I told you this was to get you to understand that…Leland, I…I know you were tired and you were frustrated about Julie that day but…but Max wasn't doing anything wrong, he was just talking to you, and you threw that beer bottle at the wall and you almost hit him….and you yelled at me and told me to mind my own damn business when all I wanted to do was help you…" She sniffled. "I know you're not James. James is a devil, and you're the best man I've ever met in my life, but…."

Leland was quiet and ashamed for a long time, and she was silent too, sniffling every so often. "I scared you," was all he could say, and his mouth could form the words. "The way I acted that day scared you."

She immediately scooted closer to him, hearing the shame and sadness in his voice and took both of his hands in hers, holding them close to her heart.

"I am saying this right now because I need you to understand. I love you, Leland. I feel completely safe with you. I would not have come home that night if I didn't. I just needed you to know that for you to understand hopefully why I shut down and shut you out for so long. I ran away from you, literally, and I ran away from talking to you and trusting you and that wasn't fair. I owe you the biggest apology of my entire life for how I reacted. It had everything to do with me and nothing to do with you."

Leland grunted humorlessly. "You ran out of the house crying because I threw a beer at the wall and opened up a lifetime of horrible memories for you. That has more than something to do with me."

She traced his wedding ring with her finger and with her other hand reached up to touch his face. "I knew when I married you that you had a temper. You just…you just need to work on a few things and I need to work on how I react to you. That's all."

Leland immediately shook his head and kissed his wife on the forehead. "You, my dear, don't have to do a damn thing. I will work on it and I will be better for you, I promise. I love you too much to ever make you cry and I'll be damned if I ever, ever make it so that you're afraid of me again."