Shades of wine, love keeps dancing through my mind

No I can't escape this time all because of you

Yesterday, love was just a word to say

Overnight a holiday, all because of you

Francoise Hardy (/Jess Sula cover) – All Because of You

She could see the back of him through the café's window and psyched herself to go inside. When she opened the door there was a small chiming sound, which caused the boy to turn around and look in the direction of the door. Grace gave a tiny smile and approached his table. He looked fairly concerned when he realized it was her and looked itching to say something. When Grace was standing opposite him and pulling out a chair for her to sit on, she softly said,

"Hi Liam."

After spending a few good hours scrapbooking her memories, she had decided it was time to tie the loose ends before she could fully decide what she wanted to do. She wasn't proud of herself for leaving Liam at the date and that was only one out of many things she wasn't proud of in the past twenty-four hours.

Liam leaned over the table to put an emphasis on his next words of concern.

"What happened to you? I was worried…" Grace sighed and began chewing on her lip as she figured out to tell Liam the truth.

"I am so sorry, Liam," She began, trying to ignore the fact that her voice was trembling. "I was in an accident during the summer and I lost a bit of my memory."

Liam looked more than confused, but Grace continued on.

"I had a boyfriend, who I couldn't remember, and I wanted to escape all of that and all the things I couldn't remember. You were there and you let me… pretend I was in some sort of fairytale… but I can't pretend anymore."

Liam exhaled deeply and ran a hand through his hair. His signature smirk was nowhere to be seen right now and Grace waited for the questions that were bound to come.

"Shit… So that's why your face was all…" He gestured on his own face to where the scar had been on hers. It had faded slightly now and was barely visible. Grace nodded and listened to a few more mutterings from his side of the table.

"So… what do you remember now?"

"Quite a lot now… It's just the order of events that is confusing me." She explained while using hand gestures. She had to tone down her excitement over being to remember so much, because he wouldn't exactly be thrilled over what she remembered.

"And your boyfriend?" There was a sense of lingering hope in his question and Grace licked her lips before continuing.
"I remember him and everything that we had." She said it as simply as she could while trying to hide her emotion.

"Right…" He stared down at his empty cup of tea and played with a packet of sugar. He emptied the packet and started drawing patterns with it on the table.

"I am truly sorry about everything… What I did was horrible -" He half-scoffed at her statement.

"Come on, you shouldn't be apologizing. You couldn't remember anything." Grace shrugged helplessly and continued on with her apology.

"Maybe things won't work with Rich and maybe in the future we can -" He gave a sad smile and placed his hand on top of hers.

"Let's just be friends, okay?" Grace looked up into his face with disbelief. Could she really be forgiven this easily? She nodded at him and he put his coat on.

"Look I've got to go, but you should try and sort everything out." Grace smiled and said her goodbyes to him.

Now she had to just figure everything out.

She found herself sitting on a park bench watching some ducks stealing pieces of bread from each other. She always loved watching the ducks and feeding them too.

She remembered dragging Rich along with her one time and it made her lips spread out into a wide smile. It had started off an argument, naturally, but ended with him happily feeding the ducks with her. She had named one Quack and he had rebutted by naming one of them Twat, because it kept trying to bite his boot. She had rolled his eyes at him, but he had quickly made up for that name by naming a cute, little duckling Grace.

"Grace?" A soft, female voice asked. Grace turned her head sharply in the direction of the voice and smiled a little when she saw who it was.

"Oh, hi Franks." Franky smiled and gave a little wave. She went to sit next to Grace and she stared off at the duck pond just like Grace was doing before.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Franky asked, still staring off at the pond.

"Just thinking." Grace said with a small dreamy sigh. "How about you?"

"I live near here… Did you forget that?" Grace scrunched her nose in deep thought then her expression calmed after a second.

"You live down that way, right?" Grace pointed in the opposite direction from the way Franky had just come from. Franky nodded and Grace couldn't help but feel proud of herself for remembering that.

"I actually need to talk to you about something." Franky asked after a short moment of silence. Grace tilted her head to show she was listening. "About the accident."

Grace closed her eyes tightly for a moment before opening them. She still hated talking or hearing about the accident. She still liked to pretend it never happened, which was difficult now that she was remembering more and more.

"I'm sorry Gracie… I really am." Grace shook her head in confusion and was about to say something when she noticed the tears welling up in Franky's eyes. Grace went to hug Franky and she let Grace hug her.

"What's wrong?" Grace whispered into Franky's ear. Franky pushed herself away from Grace and now there were a few tears rolling down her cheeks.

"It was kind of my fault… There was this guy… Matty was just chasing after us… You got in the middle of it, because you were trying to fix things, because that's what you do."

Grace brushed the tears from Franky's cheeks with her thumbs and then took a voice that a Mother might take when trying to console their children.

"It's called an accident for a reason, you know. I don't blame anyone." She gave Franky one more quick hug before trying to get Franky to smile again. "Can we just forget it. Please?"

Franky quickly nodded and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

"What's that?" Franky asked, pointing at the book resting in Grace's lap. Grace had forgotten that she had taken her scrapbook out to glance over the photos of her and Rich.

"I made a scrapbook to note down all the stuff I could remember." Franky, her interest piqued, took the book and started to flip through it.

"So… you remember him then?" Grace nodded with a sad smile.

"I think I love him." She said quietly and Franky furrowed her brow in her direction.

"And?"

"And… and I can't remember things in the right order. We almost got married. He told me I'm fake. He told me ballet is just for gays and grannies!" She nearly shouted at the end of the sentence. She was still pretty angered by that memory.

"Well, it definitely didn't happen in that order." Franky said, laughing a bit at Grace.

"I know, I know. I suppose I just have to wait even more before I can remember everything logically." Grace was pouting like a little school kid with her arms folded across her chest as well. "I don't want to wait anymore."

She just wanted to be with Rich… or did she? He might not even want her back after the way she acted. I mean leaving him in the bed before he woke up… that was one of the other things Grace wasn't proud of doing.

Franky continued flicking through the scrapbook and smiling at some things now and again.

"Franky…" Grace started in a voice that suggested she was going to ask for a big favor. "You know most things about Rich and me, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Franky said with a small shrug.

"Well, I think I'm ready to hear the story of Richard Hardbeck and Grace Violet." She was finally about to do the thing she had been putting off for weeks, but it was time. She knew some spoilers though, but now it was time to hear the whole thing.

"Well…" Franky began, setting the book aside. "It all started with this girl in the library that Rich liked…"

Grace sat through the fifteen-minute story with mixed expressions of awe and bewilderment and happiness and many other things. The story went from opposites attract to a father who would never approve of their relationship to eloping to a summer holiday than ended in tragedy.

It was truly magical. And much better than any fairytale she had ever heard, because it was real.

Maybe we can make our lives a story…

Woah, woah, woah… So what's going to happen now? Well, Grace may actually start obeying her father. And Rich might need an unlikely person to convince him to go get his girl. And there might be a very S5-reminiscent scene that paves the way to their happy ending. But hey those are all false story lines of course (not). ;)

So put down your theories for what's going to happen in the last (and probably very long) chapter.

I can't believe I'm almost done writing this :'( I've really enjoyed it and of course I will be writing another multi-chapter rich/grace story one day soon! They are my muses.

Thanks,

TheCheeryCherry