[ The Mentalist- Fanfiction] History repeats itself

[little_firestar]

Based on Tromana's prompt:

Van Pelt/Rigsby or Van Pelt/O'Laughlin

"The man says things he needs to say
Turns to smile as he stands at my door
And then I see his eyes are grey
Oh God, I've been here before"
( It's Never That Easy/I've Been Here Before from Closer Than Ever)

Hope you'll like it, and that it's close to what you wished for. A bit angsty, and without a proper heppy ending, but with this one I couldn't help myself...
 

  

     She has seen it.

25 years ago she was just a little girl, a baby girl even, but there are simply things you cannot forget, things that, maybe, just maybe, when you are four years old you don’t understand, don’t see, don’t pay attention to, but here they are, and maybe, just maybe, one day you remember them all, you understand them all as they leave the back of your mind and you become conscious of the truth, of what you saw but didn’t, couldn’t understand. 25 years ago, she couldn’t understand the cries and the tears of her mother, she couldn’t understand what it meant when she talked about… stuffs while arguing and shouting with her father. At four years old, she couldn’t understand what it meant being a woman who’s been forced to get married at 17 with the high school quarterback because you’ve been so smart get pregnant with him, she couldn’t understand what it meant giving up all you were hoping for to be a stay at home mum, while he graduated, go to university and one day, as he has always wished, becomes the couch of the team he has always wanted to lead; at four, you can’t understand what it means looking at man who has married you because he has been forced to, because he never cared about you back then, and, certainly, he isn’t caring about you right now since he is full of mistress and doesn’t even try to deny it…

Back then, she hasn’t lived it, but she has seen. That’s why when she understands what’s becoming of her life, she know what’s waiting for her at the end of the tunnel.

She doesn’t see it at first, but gradually (Mostly, she understands what’s going on because she, so stupidly, still so childish, keeping comparing Craig to Wayne). It’s in the small things, the details, in Craig not remembering what’s her favorite flower is or what’s her favorite cake, not understanding what kind of movies she likes, and so on. The small things, the details, things she repeats herself that don’t matter at all. 

Then, he is always busy when she is the one suggesting to pick a date for date night, and, when they ménage to go out, at the last minute there’s always an impediment, something to do. He has never time for her, or to join her and her friends, even if, when she is the one who has to call things off, to tell him she already has something to do on that day, or doesn’t feel like hanging out with his friends, she gets lectured by him, she gets the cold-shoulder treatment…. At the end, she always says yes to him, while his answers to her questions are always “no”.

The next step is telling her what she is supposed to do, what she is supposed to say, who she is supposed to see. Craig doesn’t like her going out with Wayne, even if it’s just for work and there’s always the rest of the team as well. He doesn’t like her working late because this way ha can’t know for sure where she is or whom she is with. He doesn’t her going out on her own because he can’t know who she’ll see once there, what she could do once there. The funny thing is that she doesn’t understand it at first, what he is doing. There’s always this smile on his lips when he talks, he is always so sweet and worried, that she can’t help but feeling not worth him, and can’t help falling in love a little bit more every time his thumb skims over her lips and his eyes don’t leave hers.

She ash live it, seen it, but yet, she can’t accept it, can’t remember it yet.

It’s only when he hits her that she understands what is really going on, because he doesn’t have any reason to. Quite the opposite, Craig should hold her, calm her down, be good with her, but Craig isn’t there, Craig is never there for her. His carrier is more important than hers, his friends are more important than hers, everything is more important than her… he isn’t there to calm her down while she cries out of fear, Wayne is, and when Craig, finally, arrives (because his boss has heard of it and told him to go, not because he felt like helping her out. why should he? He has heard the radio, she is fine, she is alive, what’d good is going to do to her joining her?) The only thing he does, the first thing he does, is separating them, sending Wayne on the soil, and then Grace, and then him, and her again… and his eyes, she can sees it, they are cold, they are empty, they are talking about hate and rage, and not about what she’d like to hear.

She’d like to hear about love and passion, about a bright future together, getting old together back home sharing everything, but she can’t, she knows she will not, never, ever; deny it is pointless, and keeping this us, she'll just end up hurt furthermore, she'll end up trapped in something that will make her unhappy for the rest of her life, unable to escape for her own will and for the will of another one.

She has seen it, she has lived it, and she is living it. And it’s time to wake up from this nightmare she calls a love-story before it's too late, before history would repeat itself, before she'll have to see a four years old hearing things she shouldn't and unable to understand them.  

 

Comments

[tromana.livejournal.com]

I really like your characterisation of O'Laughlin, especially as we know so little about him and the way you managed to capture Grace's despair at how her relationship with him is unfolding. I noticed a few mistakes however, maybe it would be worth getting a beta to check things over sometimes? Thanks for writing, it's definitely an interesting interpretation.

[little-firestar.livejournal.com]

my guess would be sleep deprivation-that's what happens when you wirte at past midnight after days you haven't sleep because your new cat has decided that has to miew the entire night to show you how much he loves you and that he can do much, much more worse when he isn't with you (especially if the option is having him running after the other two kitties breaking every fragile thing in the entire place) seen? I'm over-talking, yep, definitely sleep deprivation.
Anyway, there's a good cahnce it will be beta for the day it will see the light in my mentalist prompts collection on fanfiction.net.

And talking about serious business: glad you liked it. I felt a bit angsty today, so, instead of a classy grisby romance, I prefered a grace/craig one, also because, don't ask me why, but deep, deep down, I see him a bit like a little sneaky bastard-and maybe I'm wrong. Don't take me wrong, I couldn't care less about Rigsby's romance with Grace. i think, at the time, he wasn't ready, and he has been a bit tto naif about the whole thing (besides, the way he "suggested" her what to do with erh carrier in order to make it work? didn't like it a bit!) but Craig? he strikes me as the guy looking for the doll, trophy wife, that's all...