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3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15

By: inspirixis1



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SUMMER SOPHOMORE/JUNIOR YEAR

The last few weeks of the semester flew by blindingly fast. Nicholas couldn't believe how quickly winter had turned into spring and spring into summer. 

He and Grace were back to sleeping together but now it was under the best of circumstances. They were in love. 

There was nothing better than waking up with Grace in his arms. Sometimes he still had to do a double take to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Sometimes he had trouble believing that she had chosen him. Who would have thought that fun, sexy, dynamic Grace would want to be with a boring nerd like him? 

They hadn't had sex, but he had seen her cum and she had made him. The first time had been when he was giving her the Wednesday evening massage. That week she had been learning the neck. 

By that point they had given up the charade of pretending that their massages were just massages. By that point he would speak to her softly and kiss her and stroke her and she would let out little sighs and murmurs that made it essentially impossible to keep his dick limp. 

She had told him that he didn't have to keep it down anymore, but he still liked to keep pretty tight control of it. He didn't want to startle her with it. He only let it get hard when he figured that she could reasonably expect that he would get turned on. 

That first time he had been sitting behind her and she was lounging into him, her head resting on this belly. He had been rubbing the muscles in her neck and watching her face from above. Her eyes were closed and her mouth moved every so often. She would bite down on her swollen red lip and let it slowly slip out from under her teeth.

After he had done all of the muscles in her neck he moved on to her shoulders. It wasn't part of her assignment but by this time she was breathing heavily and her cheeks and the skin of her chest were flushed red so Nicholas could tell that she was enjoying it. He let his hands slip lower, over that hot red skin, moving in slow circles, giving her plenty of time to stop him if she wanted to.

But Grace didn't seem to want him to stop, in fact she seemed to want him to do more. She reached her left hand up found the back of his neck, which she clutched at as she arched her back so that her breasts inched closer to his hands. 

"Touch them," she whispered.

He dipped his hands under the neckline of her tank top and was helpless to stifle the moan that escaped his lips. Grace wasn't wearing a bra and his hands cupped over the silken skin of the softest, most fabulous breasts he could imagine. They were the most luxurious things that he had ever experienced. 

"Oh Kolya..." She sighed. Her mouth was open and her forehead was wrinkled as if she were concentrating on something. 

He stroked his hands slowly over her soft round breasts and she sighed and moaned quietly. Nicholas felt her body moving in time with his caresses, her hips rocked slowly and rhythmically. 

Her right hand was wrapped around his thigh and he removed his hand from her breast and guided hers down over her belly and to the top of her pants. 

"Touch yourself Gracie," he told her softly. 

Her eyes opened and searched his for reassurance. He could tell that she wanted to but she was reluctant. 

"Go on baby," he urged, "it's okay."

Grace's hand slid under the waistband of her pants and he could see the fabric shift as she moved her fingers over her pussy. She sighed as if in relief. 

Nicholas returned his hand to her breast and continued stroking, getting a little firmer with them as her sighing turned to moans and the gentle rocking of her hips became more urgent. 

Grace's eyes never left his, her dark lashes blinked slowly and her lips were parted to allow her deep breaths to escape. He caught her hard nipples between his fingers and she gasped, her brow furrowed and her eyes lustful. 

"Oh..." she moaned, "Oh Nicholas..." 

Her voice was soft and angelic. He wanted to kiss her so badly but the angle was all wrong, he would have to disturb her and she looked like she was enjoying this way too much for that. 

Nicholas kept his eyes firmly fixed on Grace's face but in his peripheral vision he could see the motion in her pants quickening.

She let out a small cry, possibly the sexiest sound he had ever heard, and pressed her head back into his stomach while at the same time her hand that was behind his neck grasped him firmly. 

She closed her eyes and removed her hand from her pants as she curled into him. Nicholas took his hands out from under her shirt and pulled her higher, up against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her as she buried her head against him.

"Shh Gracie... it's okay baby... I'm here Grace." 

Grace was crying against him as he rubbed her arms and kissed her hair. 

"You're a good girl milaya... I love you Gracie." He murmured to her. 

If he hadn't known to expect this response it might have worried him, but he knew she just needed reassurance, patience and reassurance. 

Each step they took together would be difficult at first. That is what the councilor had told him. When it became evident that Grace wanted to be intimate with him Nicholas had called the rape crisis center and talked to a councilor about it. 

She had given him some good advice. Grace needed to know that she was in control of the situation at all times and that meant taking thing slowly and talking about it before, after and even during whatever they were doing. The councilor had also given him advice on the logistics of sex with a rape survivor. She probably wouldn't like feeling confined, any physical feeling of being restrained might cause her to have a flash back. 

There was something else that the councilor had told Nicholas that was difficult to hear, but necessary nonetheless. Apparently it wasn't uncommon for rape victims to orgasm during the attack. It had nothing to do with enjoyment, it was simply a physical response to the stress of the attack. It could be terribly damaging. These women often linked orgasm with rape subconsciously and were unable to dissociate the unpleasant feelings of shame, guilt, fear, anger and resentment from the act of orgasm. 

That had taken Nicholas a while to come to terms with. Every time he had cum it had felt good and it had come from feeling turned on and enjoying what was happening. He didn't understand how a woman could orgasm while she was being raped. He didn't understand how Grace, his Grace, could have had an orgasm when she was attacked. He didn't know for sure if she had, but it was possible, the way she broke down when she climaxed made him suspect that she might have. 

He had gone to the library and read about it in detail. It had nothing to do with enjoyment. Just like the councilor had said, orgasm could be an involuntary response to stress and physical trauma. 

He felt ashamed for his ignorance, for how quickly he had judged those women who had the bad luck to have had an orgasm during rape. At least Grace would never know his first reaction, at least if it came up with her he could have the correct response, to be the man she needed him to be. 

It had been weird to talk to a stranger about sex with Grace but it was necessary. Grace wasn't just any woman, she was the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to protect and nurture and build a life with. If she had this problem with orgasm they would have to work through it slowly and carefully. He would have to help her to make new associations, feelings of safety and love and respect. 

He was glad that Grace had chosen him to be the person to help her to rediscover her sexuality. Apart from the obvious reason, that he loved Grace and wanted to be with her, he knew that he was the right person to help her through this. Nicholas was nothing if not patient and he would always try to understand and accept her for who she was, no matter if she was what social expectation dictated or not. 

Not that he thought Adrian was incapable of compassion and understanding, actually the opposite was true. The more they saw of Adrian the more that Nicholas realized he was a person of great intelligence... social intelligence. In a way he was like Grace, he had heaps of friends, people were always calling him, he was always silencing his phone. 

Adrian would make a great politician. Not because he was slimy and corrupt, but because he was interested in people. He remembered little details that most people would quickly forget. He asked Nicholas how Lucas was, and Grace about where Matthew was applying to college. Nicholas could picture him shaking hands and kissing the heads of babies at political rallies. 

One Sunday when Adrian and Sarah were leaving after breakfast Grace made a joke about how Adrian needed to get home to do his homework. "What do you think I keep her around for?" He joked, playfully swatting Sarah on the butt. She had rolled her eyes and laughed, but he knew there was truth behind the joke. Other people did things for Adrian, and they didn't mind doing them because he was such a charismatic guy. 

That's why it wasn't surprising that he and his buddy Troy were subletting Nicholas and Grace's apartment for the summer while they were away, even though Nicholas would have preferred to just pay the rent and let it sit vacant for three months. He was earning enough with the movies, paying the rent for a couple of months when they weren't there really wasn't a big deal financially. 

The idea of subletting didn't bother Grace the way it bothered Nicholas. He didn't like the idea of other people being in his space, and he hated the idea of other people being in Grace's space. He didn't want people naked in their shower or fucking in their bed. 

But Adrian had asked in such a way that it made it difficult to say no, and Troy seemed like a nice enough guy. In the end he had decided that he should just swallow his pride and sublet the apartment fully furnished. He had every intention of having the place professionally cleaned and donating the couch and mattresses to Goodwill in favor of new ones when he and Grace came back in the fall. 

He was just finishing packing when Adrian, Sarah and Troy showed up. He had taken Grace to the airport the previous day and his flight was that afternoon. Adrian had borrowed a friend's SUV to move but all of his and Troy's stuff still didn't fit in one load, they had to go back to their old apartment on the Northeastern campus to get the rest of their stuff. 

Nicholas overheard him in the kitchen talking to Sarah about it. He hadn't meant to sneak up on them, people just rarely noticed him for some reason. Unless he said something or was directly in their line of sight he went unnoticed. He didn't understand why, he always knew when someone had entered a room, even if he couldn't see them. He guessed that most people were just excessively unobservant. 

"I don't want to stay here alone with him," Sarah said in a hushed tone. "He's just... he's just so weird..."

"Hey." Adrian cut her off sharply. "Don't forget whose apartment you are standing in Sarah. Don't forget that you're talking about my friend." 

"Okay, sorry" she said gently. "He just kind of scares me. He's so quiet and I can never tell what he's thinking. He could overpower me so easily if he wanted to..." 

Nicholas left the room quietly and nobody ever knew he had been there. He knew that Sarah was talking about him, but instead of upsetting him that exchange had made him happy. Adrian had stood up for him. He'd said that Nicholas was his friend. 

He decided to leave early and go to the gym on the way to the airport so that Sarah could wait in the apartment alone. He didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable and it couldn't hurt to get in an extra training session before he started practicing with the rest of the crew the next day. 

He felt comfortable with the weapons and the tricks he had been asked to master but he wasn't sure what the other martial artists on this crew would be like. When he had shot his first movie last year it had just been kicking and hand and arm strikes and he was by far the best athlete on the set, but he wasn't so sure this gig would be the same thing. 

It turned out that he need not have worried. The stunt crew on this set was professionals but he was still the most skillful by a long margin. Some of the guys who were weapons experts had some cool moves, but it didn't take Nicholas long to learn them too. 

He had a bigger role in this movie. He played the right-hand man to the bad guy. He didn't have any lines but there was some acting involved because there would be some close-ups of him. He liked the acting less than he liked the stunts but he got paid way more so he put up with it. 

The second week into shooting the guy that wrote the screenplay came on set for a few days. He was supposed to be there to tutor everyone on their characters, their motivation and all that bullshit. Nicholas thought it was stupid, it was an all action cops and gangsters movie, as far as he could tell the characters were there to fight and ultimately get shot or explode. 

Bryan, the playwright, was a big black dude who never seemed to stop talking. It suited Nicholas just fine, when Bryan was droning on about how his character was feeling he just nodded and said 'uh-huh' every now and then to keep him going. This seemed to be all that Bryan needed and before long he was regaling Nicholas with stories of how he started out writing screenplays. 

It turned out that he had played basketball for U.C. Berkeley. 

"No shit?" Nicholas commented. "My aunty went to Cal. She was on the track and field team." 

"What's her name?" Bryan asked. 

"Emma Watson... although I guess she would have been using her maiden name back then and I'm not sure what that is."

Bryan laughed in surprise. "Emma is your aunty? Watson is her maiden name, unless we are thinking of a different person... tall black girl with a big smile, she was studying to be a social worker, she ran the 800 and 1500..." 

"Yeah, that sounds like my Emma," Nicholas replied. But how could Watson be her maiden name? 

"I remember I went on a date with her once but then she brushed me off, told me she was seeing someone else... How is Emma?" 

"She's good. Married with five kids." 

Bryan smiled and shook his head. "Five kids. Imagine that. So if Emma is your aunty you must be Sam's kid?" 

Huh? How did he figure that? "No." 

"Oh, you must be related to her husband then." 

Nicholas was confused. Bryan seemed to know who Sam was, but he didn't think he was Emma's husband. Nicholas must have heard wrong, it seemed like Bryan thought Sam was Emma's brother. "Are we talking about the same Sam?" Nicholas asked. 

"Who, her brother? Tall white guy, blonde hair, I think he was a swimmer. I guess technically he is her adoptive brother, but whatever." 

Holy fuck. "Uh-huh," Nicholas managed to get out. His mind was racing. Sam and Emma were brother and sister. That's why Emma's parents were never around, because Sam's parents were also her parents. 

Nicholas couldn't stop thinking about this new revelation. He didn't know how he felt about it. On the one hand it was kind of gross, it would be like if Grace and Matthew got together. That would be so weird. On the other hand he had never known, never even suspected that there was anything unusual about them. 

Sam and Emma were good parents. Maybe not as good as his parents, sometimes, especially when he was annoyed, Sam would talk to you as if you were still a child and Emma was a bit neurotic at times, but they were good solid parents nonetheless. They loved their children and took good care of them. There was nothing weird or kinky in their family and so should it really matter if they were raised as siblings? 

He wondered if Grace knew. He wondered if he should tell her. He didn't want to keep secrets from Grace, but this wasn't really his secret, it was just something that he'd stumbled upon accidentally. He wondered if his parents knew. He knew immediately that he wouldn't tell them. He might tell Grace but he wouldn't tell his parents. 

He didn't tell Grace about it when he spoke to her on the phone that night, or the next night, or the night after that. He didn't want to say anything until he was sure about how he felt about it, and then he decided that if he did tell her he should do it in person. 

It was just so weird. 

***

"Grace, do you mind taking care of the guy in room three before you take off for lunch? It's another ACL reconstruction, he's at twelve weeks so he just needs the ultrasound, then six minutes of electrical and some ice." Amelia instructed.

Grace put on her most obliging smile. "Yeah, no problem." Of course she minded but she wasn't about to let that on to her boss. She had been working there for four weeks and she thought it was going pretty well. There had been a couple of rough spots, times when she did something wrong or someone said something that made her feel bad, but generally it was good. She was learning a lot, working was way more educational than school. 

Usually she didn't have any problem putting on a smiley face and getting through the day but she was having a crappy day today. It was her birthday and she missed Nicholas. He had left a text message on her phone in the early hours of the morning saying happy birthday and that he couldn't call her until tonight. She didn't blame him, she knew it was just because of his shooting schedule, but she had been disappointed all the same. 

She hadn't been prepared for how hard this summer was going to be. She had known that she would miss Nicholas, but she didn't realize that it would be such a powerful ache that would feel so all consuming so much of the time. Sometimes she cried for him at night. It was stupid, but she couldn't help it. They talked on the phone every night and some mornings too, but it wasn't enough, she still missed him. 

And now she had to use her lunch hour to treat some idiot who'd blown out his ACL. 

She got the ultrasound and electrical therapy machines out of the storage room, and all of the extra stuff that went with them and headed towards room three. 

Paula, the receptionist gave her a funny smile as she passed her in the hallway. What was that for? 

She pushed open the door and pulled the machines in behind her. The trundle wheel on the ultrasound caught and she had to struggle with it to try and get it through the door. It was frustrating. 

"Do you need help?" 

Grace froze. She knew that voice. She would recognize that voice anywhere. She looked up and saw Nicholas standing beside the treatment bed smiling with a big bunch of flowers in his hands. Her heart leapt. Nicholas was here. 

"Happy birthday milaya," he said as he walked towards her. He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. 

Grace knew that she was smiling like an idiot. Nicholas held the door open for her and she pulled the machines into the room. The door wasn't even closed all the way when she spun around and hugged him. 

"What are you doing here? I thought you had to film today?" She asked. 

"I told them I was sick. I wanted to see you on your birthday." 

"You flew all the way out here for my birthday?" 

"Of course." He was smiling at her, god how she had missed that smile. "These are for you." He held the flowers up between them. It was a huge bunch of brightly colored freesias. 

"How did you know?" She asked. She didn't think she had ever discussed what her favorite flowers were with Nicholas. 

"You always comment on freesias. That and ranunculus, but nobody could get those in for me, nobody grows them out of season." 

Grace smiled as she shook her head and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Nicholas Gray, have I told you that I love you?" She had. She had told him many, many times. 


3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15



"Not today." She could hear the paper on the outside of the flowers crinkling behind her as Nicholas pulled her close to him, pressing the bouquet into her back. 

"Well I do. I love you very much." 

He kissed her properly then, a deep warm kiss that made her feel wanted, one that made her forget that she was at work. 

"I love you too Gracie," he said softly. "Now, do you want to have lunch?" 

Nicholas took her out for lunch. She had a turkey sandwich that she'd brought from home, so she gave that to a homeless man on the corner. 

"Have you told your parents that we are together yet?" He asked after they had ordered their food. 

"No. I keep on thinking that a good opportunity will come up but it hasn't yet."

Nicholas nodded. "Maybe today is a good opportunity." 

He was right. She rode to and from work with her mom, there were going to be questions when Grace showed up with a huge bunch of flowers. 

As she had anticipated, her mom's jaw dropped when she saw her. 

"Who gave you those Gracie?" She asked. 

"Nicholas did."

"Nicholas?" Her mom looked at her with a curious little smile. 

"Mm..." Grace didn't quite know how to put it delicately so she just came right out and said it. "He's my boyfriend." 

Her mom's slight smile grew into an all out grin. "You and Nicholas?" 

Grace felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Yeah. He's here in Denver, he'll be at home when we get there." 

Her mom raised her eyebrows. "I thought he was supposed to be on set?" 

"He took a sick day, he surprised me at the clinic and took me out for lunch."

"But you've been at work, what has he been doing all afternoon?"

"He said he had to go and pick up my birthday presents." Grace said with a shrug. 

"Those aren't your present?" Her mom asked, nodding at the flowers. 

"I guess not." 

Her mom shook her head. "Well, he's Tyler's son, that's for sure," she said as she pulled out into the flow of traffic. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Grace wasn't sure what to expect when she got home, she had no idea what Nicholas had in store for her. She had tried to get at least a hint out of him over lunch but all he would tell her is that he was certain that she would like them. 

It smelled amazing in her parents' house, all chocolaty and cinnamony. That was a good start, a very good start. She walked into the kitchen, towards the delicious smell and stopped dead, stunned for the second time that day. There, at one of the kitchen islands, was Zach, and at the other one Beth was showing Ollie how to do something with pastry. 

"Zach!" She heard her mom behind her. 

Zach looked up at them and gave them a big grin, his smile taking up most of his skinny face. "Hi Emma. Happy Birthday Gracie." 

Nicholas was sitting at the island across from where Zach was working and he got up to welcome her. He kissed her on the forehead and took the flowers out of her hands. "I told you that you'd like them," he told her. 

Nicholas hugged her mom hello and then got a vase out of the cupboard above the fridge and took care of the flowers. 

Grace finally got over her shock and sat beside Nicholas at the kitchen island while they chatted with Zach and Beth. Nicholas had paid for their plane tickets. They were staying for three days. Grace was overjoyed, she hadn't seen them since Christmas. 

Before long the kitchen was filled with other family members. It was fun to watch everyone's reaction when they saw Nicholas, Zach and Beth. Uncle Tyler and Lucas showed up next and then Aunt Maya a few minutes later. Maya started crying with joy when she saw Nicholas. Grace hadn't expected that, it seemed out of character. 

A little later Grace felt Nicholas stiffen in the seat beside her and asked what was wrong. 

"Your dad is home. You should go and tell him." 

How did he know that? She took his word and sure enough there in the driveway was her dad's SUV. She wet outside and said hello to Matthew and Micah, they were just getting back from their summer training camp at the pool. 

Micah looked pissed. Poor kid. He was fighting a losing battle with swimming and everyone seemed to know it but him. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it, he was, it was just that Matthew was really good at it, and Lucas was perhaps even better. 

It wasn't Micah's fault, he just didn't have the body for it. He was tall, but not towering like Matthew, and when he worked out hard his body went lean and sinewy rather than developing the thick bulbous muscles that Matthew sported these days.

Micah should have been the one on the cross-country team, or cycling, he could kick everyone's ass on the bikes, but for some reason he just kept on slogging away at swimming. She asked her mom about it but she just shrugged and said that you can't tell teenagers what to do. 

Micah wasn't whom she was worried about right now though. Right now she had to tell her dad that she was in a relationship with the man who she lived with for most of the year. 

"Dad I have something I need to tell you," Grace said before he could get to the door. 

He eyed her suspiciously. "You didn't quit your internship did you?"

She smiled. "No, it's not that." 

"Okay..." He flipped his keys over his finger again and again while he waited for her to divulge her news. 

Grace took a deep breath. She didn't know how he was going to take this. "Nicholas and I are dating." 

"Mm, and..." 

Grace was taken aback, he was acting like he already knew. "And he's in the house. He came out for my birthday."

Her dad raised his eyebrows and nodded, his bright blue eyes still not satisfied. "Anything else?" 

Huh? Wasn't that enough? "Well, Zach and Beth are here too but that was supposed to be a surprise." 

His eyes went wide with excitement. "Zach's here?" 

"Yeah, he's in the house..."

Her dad was already heading towards the door, the conversation about Nicholas apparently forgotten. Grace thought she was off the hook, but then he turned back to her and pointed at her sternly as he said, "I want you to talk to your mother about birth control. No ifs or buts." Then he opened the door and went into the house.

Well that had been easier than she had expected. It was going to be embarrassing to talk to her mom about birth control, but it was a small price to pay for her parents' acceptance of her relationship with Nicholas. She hadn't been horribly concerned about it, she and Nicholas weren't actually related, they weren't really cousins. Still, it was nice to have it out in the open. 

Grace followed her dad into the house. When she arrived in the kitchen he was hugging Nicholas hello.

"No shotgun?" Nicholas asked. 

"No. Try and keep it that way." Her dad replied dryly. 

It was like Christmas in June. The dining room table had all of its extension plates inserted and it was still crowded with food and family. Everyone was in a good mood, even her dad gave up the charade of pretending that he didn't like Nicholas and was laughing and joking around. Everyone knew that Sam loved Nicholas, she had no idea why he felt the need to feign hostility. 

Zach and Beth cooked an awesome dinner but it was the desserts that blew Grace away. She loved desserts and they had made chocolate pastries with an apricot sauce that was to die for. 

She didn't want the night to end. It was so good to have the whole family there. It was the best present she could have imagined. 

After desert everyone stayed sitting at the table talking. Nobody wanted to leave. Nicholas was sitting beside her and he leaned in close. 

"Happy?" He asked. 

Grace smiled. "Very." 

He patted her on the leg and smiled back at her. "Good." 

It was late when Uncle Tyler and Aunt Maya took Lucas home and Grace's mom sent her brothers to bed. Nicholas said goodbye to them as they went, he was catching the first flight back to LA the next morning and would leave even before the boys were up for swimming. 

"Want to go for a walk?" He asked her.

They walked to the big park down the road, where they used to play when they were little kids. Nicholas held her hand. 

"Did you have a good birthday milaya?"

"Yes, I had a superb birthday. Probably the best one I've ever had." 

"Yet," he added. 

"I don't know how it could get much better than this Kolya."

"Hm... maybe next year I wont have to run off back to LA the next day," he said regretfully.

Grace turned to him. "I want to do something for you Nicholas. You're always doing stuff for me. Tell me what I can do for you." 

Nicholas shook his head. "Just be yourself Gracie, that's all I need." 

"Yeah but what do you want? I didn't need to see you and Zach today but it made my life a whole lot better when I did. I want to make your life better too." 

"Okay... sing for me." 

"Sing?"

"Yeah, I miss your voice Gracie. It makes me happy to hear you sing." 

"Ah... okay..." Grace cleared her throat as if she were preparing for something big. 

They had stopped along the path near the pond. Nicholas' face was bathed in the soft light of the almost-full moon. It was the middle of the summer and it was anything but silent in the park. There were frogs croaking, bugs humming, the ducks fluttered and complained where they nested at the banks of the pond. The air was still warm and think from the thunderstorm that afternoon. 

She started singing the first thing that came into her head. It was a pop song called 'Crazy,' not really very romantic but she loved the tune and she sang it slowly, like a lullaby. 

Nicholas relaxed visibly when she started singing. He closed his eyes and wrapped one arm around her waist as he took her hand and started moving in time with her song. It was a sweet slow dance that didn't have any fancy moves, it didn't need any, it was perfect just the way it was. Nicholas kissed her face softly as she sang. His lips moved over her forehead, then her cheek and to her ear. His breath was hot on her neck. 

Something was happening. Grace couldn't quite put her finger on it. Her chest was aching the way it did when she cried. Her whole body felt warm and tingly. Her throat constricted so that she struggled to get the last notes of the song out. She felt breathless for no apparent reason.

Nicholas took her hand in both of his and laid it up against his chest, where his heart was. His dark eyes were wide and earnest. "Gracie," he said quietly, "this is yours." He pressed her hand against him and she felt the steady thump of his heart. "This belongs to you milaya." 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nicholas was confused. There were so many things going on all at once that it was difficult to keep everything straight in his head. 

He tried to concentrate on what the choreographer was telling him. He was on the new set and there was a new group of people to work with. It wasn't a difficult scene but he kept on stuffing up the last bit. He was supposed to support himself with one arm on a railing while kicking the first guy in the chest with both feet then twist his legs above his head and move down the railing hand over hand by spinning his body and kick a second guy in the head. 

It shouldn't have been that difficult but he kept on falling before he could get the last kick in. He couldn't stop thinking about the past weekend. He had a weekend off before shooting the second movie and he had gone home to Colorado to visit Grace. 

As soon as he saw her he knew there was something wrong. He had sensed that something was different over the phone, but he had figured that she was probably just stressed out about her job. She had been in a crabby mood lately, ever since her birthday she would snap at him in a way that she never had before. 

When he saw her she smiled and hugged him and kissed him like normal but she smelled all wrong. Nicholas couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. It wasn't just that she had changed her shampoo or laundry detergent, he could smell through those superficial scents. Grace smelled different. It was unnerving. 

He couldn't figure out what it was until he saw his mom that night, or should he say he smelled his mom. He hugged her hello and she was uncharacteristically emotional in her welcoming him, the same as she had been on Grace's birthday. He caught a whiff of something that reminded him of Grace and he allowed himself to bring his nose closer to her skin to smell her properly. 

It was a bit odd. He didn't usually go around smelling women other than Grace, but this was like a puzzle, why did Grace and his mom all of a sudden smell strange? As he stood there with his nose on his mother's neck he all of a sudden remembered something from his childhood. 

He was just a little boy and he was sitting in his mother's lap crying. He must have hurt himself because she was cradling him and stroking his hair and murmuring to him that it was going to be okay. Only instead of feeling comforted he felt frustrated. He couldn't get close to her. He wanted to lay his head on her breast but it was too awkward, her belly was in the way, her big pregnant belly was in the way. 

The realization struck him like a train. His mom was pregnant. She reeked of it. 

But if that was it then why did Grace smell that way too? 

When he saw Grace again later that night he took his time and smelled her properly. He breathed on the skin of her neck and inhaled her deeply. Nicholas knew Grace's scent like the back of his hand, he was very in tune with it. Usually he could tell roughly where she was in her cycle just by smelling the air that she disturbed when she moved. 

She definitely smelled wrong. He wasn't imagining it. It wasn't as strong as the way his mom smelled and it wasn't exactly the same either, but it was in the same family of smells. Pregnancy hormones. And there was another thing. Her breasts felt swollen, like the way they did right before she got her period. 

He was worried. He and Grace had never had sex. He didn't think they were even close to having sex. She had made him cum before, but it had never gotten close to her vagina. Beside which, she hadn't smelled this way on her birthday, he felt sure that he would have noticed it if she did. He had been so close to her when they were dancing in the park, he would have noticed then if she smelled different. 

So that meant that if she was pregnant it must have happened in the last five weeks since her birthday. In the five weeks that he hadn't seen her. So there were two possibilities, both horrible and painful to entertain. Either Grace had slept with someone else willingly or she had been raped again. 

He tried to talk to her about it. He asked gently if everything was okay, if anything had happened that she needed to talk about. She looked genuinely confused when she told him innocently that there was nothing wrong. Then he realized that she might not know herself, she might have miscounted the days and not know yet, so he asked her straight out if she was seeing someone else and that's when she had flipped out. 

She had been really offended. He could see the pain in her eyes. "What the fuck Nicholas?" She had asked. "Why would you say something like that?" 

That's why it was so confusing. He believed her. He really believed that Grace loved him and had not and would not cheat on him. 

He thought that maybe he had got the smell wrong so he asked his dad flat out if his mom was pregnant. His dad's eyes had gone wide with surprise. 

"How did you know?" He asked. 

"Come on dad, I can smell her a mile away." 

His surprise turned into curiosity. His eyes narrowed and his head cocked to the side in question. "You can smell her?" 

"Sure, can't you?" 

"No." His dad regarded him openly for a moment and then snapped back to the conversation. "She's at thirteen weeks. We weren't planning on telling anyone until much later, she's kind of old to be having a baby so it's risky, she's more likely to miscarry or have other complications."

Nicholas nodded. It was difficult to think of his mom as being old but he guessed forty-three was on the older side to be having a baby. If she carried to term there would be twenty-one years between her oldest and youngest children. 

So there was nothing wrong with his nose, which meant that Grace was also pregnant... right? 

Damn it. He fell again. Why couldn't he get this trick right? 

"Cut!" The director sounded exasperated. "Okay everyone, lets take a break. We'll try again in fifteen."

Nicholas picked himself up and went over to where the food was. Maybe he needed to eat something. If he increased his blood sugar he might be able to concentrate better. 

Within seconds his mind was back on Grace. He missed her so much. He missed things that he hadn't even realized were important. Like her cooking, Grace was a funny cook. She made good food, he always enjoyed her meals, it was just that she didn't understand the concept of pairing. She would serve Chinese field greens with oyster sauce as a side dish to lasagna. 

Once she made a tray of enchiladas and served green beans with it. It wasn't the strangest pairing she had ever made and so Nicholas didn't really think anything of it until he saw the recipe that she had left out on the counter. It said to serve the enchiladas with rice and beans. She thought it had meant green beans. It was so ironic, Grace grew up in the southwest, she was Hispanic herself, and she served green beans with enchiladas. He couldn't stop smiling while he was doing the dishes that night. 

She had asked him what was so funny but he didn't tell her the truth, he made something up about school. He didn't want her to stop doing enchiladas her way, he preferred them the way she made them. He wanted Grace to always do things her way.

Grace. Beautiful, confusing Grace. He believed that she was pregnant, the smell and her grumpy, touchy attitude made it hard not to believe it, but he also believed that she loved him and wouldn't cheat on him. So that only left one scenario. She had been raped again and she couldn't bring herself to tell him. 

It wasn't totally unbelievable. It had taken her over a year to be able to tell her parents when it happened the first time. Maybe it was the same thing? The thought of it made his stomach turn. Not just the thought of her being raped, but the thought of her being unable to talk to him about it. It was... nauseating. Now he was starting to understand how Sam felt. 

So... what was he going to do about it? 

Grace's love was the important thing. He didn't think he could live without Grace's love, so he would just have to do whatever she needed him to. If she wanted to have the baby he would help her. If she wanted to keep it they could talk about that. He guessed he could try to be its father. If that was what she wanted he would try. Sam would probably never talk to him again, but that was out of his hands at this point. 

It wasn't the way he had pictured their life together starting out but nobody lives in a fairytale. He was sure his dad probably wasn't overjoyed when he found out that his mom had a kid, but they'd figured it out, they'd had a pretty good life together.  

Of course this was different, Nicholas' biological father wasn't a rapist. But this would be Gracie's baby. He thought he could love Gracie's baby no matter the father. 

It would be hard but they could do it if that's what she wanted. They had enough money and Nicholas loved her and she loved him. They could do it. 

Things had not been left well between them. He had been so confused and she had been so grumpy. He had apologized for asking if she was seeing someone else and they had made up, but it had felt forced. Like they were just trying to patch things up until they could sort it out for real when they moved back in together this fall. 




3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15



That was still the plan, as far as he knew. There were only three more weeks to go. This second movie was just a small role. They had just brought him in for some specialized stunts that he was now royally fucking up. 

He sighed. He could do the trick. He just needed to concentrate and work for three more weeks, then he could go back to Boston and figure out this situation with Grace and they could get on with the next step in their life, whatever that might be. 

***

FALL, JUNIOR YEAR

Grace didn't really understand why Nicholas felt the need to replace all of the furniture and change the locks on the apartment. It was just Adrian and Troy, they weren't weirdo strangers or anything, it's not like they would keep a key and come back and steal their stereo in the night or anything. 

"Just humor me Grace," he requested. So she let it go. 

He seemed stressed out lately and he wouldn't tell her why. Ever since he came to visit her that second time and he had accused her of seeing someone else he had seemed on edge. It was weird. It wasn't like Nicholas to be paranoid like that. 

She tried to shrug it off as she unpacked the boxes they'd had in storage over the summer. She was already done with the luggage that she'd taken with her to Denver. 

"Grace." 

She looked up. Nicholas was in the doorway holding her birth control pills. He had shaved his head for the second movie and his hair was shorter than she had ever seen it. It made his ears stick out, like his mom's did. Grace had never realized that he had his mom's ears.

"What's this?" His voice was neutral. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. 

"They're birth control pills," she responded. She didn't want to but she knew that she was blushing. 

Nicholas did something very strange then. He lifted them to his nose and he sniffed at them. It was so odd. Sometimes Nicholas could be really weird. 

"How long have you been taking these?" His voice was friendlier now. 

"Mom asked me to get a prescription after I told them about you but the first brand I tried made me totally crazy. I've been on that brand for just over a month now, they seem to be better." 

Nicholas blinked a few times and then he said, "They change the balance of your hormones, right?"

"Yeah, they trick your body into believing it's pregnant."

Nicholas closed his eyes and nodded slowly. He had a weird expression on his face, like something inside him was breaking. He looked like he was about to start crying. 

"Are you okay?" She asked. It was such a strange response to something that was so ordinary. She would have guessed that most women her age who were in a relationship would be on the pill.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. He did have tears in his eyes. "Yeah."

"Kolya..." she crossed the room and put her arms around him. "Baby, what's the matter? You've been acting weird for weeks." 

Nicholas' arms wrapped around her and for the first time since her birthday she really felt like he was hugging her. "I... I thought you were pregnant. These pills make you smell different. I thought you were keeping it from me."

Grace was confused. "But how could I be pregnant? We haven't even had sex." 

Nicholas didn't say anything, he just hugged her tighter, and then it clicked. That's what his questioning about seeing another man was about. He thought she had slept with someone else and gotten pregnant. Grace didn't know if she should be mad or not. One part of her was furious. How could he have doubted her like that? 

"You thought I had cheated on you?" She asked, trying to keep her voice even. 

"I didn't know what to think. I thought that maybe you had been raped again and you didn't want to tell me." 

Grace's heart just about broke then. Suddenly the thought of being angry with him was repulsive. All of this time he had been suffering, thinking that she had been raped again, all because the pill had made her smell different to him. 

She knew Nicholas had a ridiculously sensitive nose, but it hadn't occurred to her that she would smell different because she was on the pill. 

She should have thought of it, Nicholas relied on his nose for interpreting a lot of the world. Once, when they were in high school and he was watching the boys, he had evacuated her parents' house because he said that he could smell a gas leak in the back yard. 

Nobody else could smell it but he was insistent. Nicholas refused to let her dad take her brothers home until he promised to get it checked, he even stood between them as if her dad were a danger to them. Grace remembered how awkward that had been, how she could tell her dad was pissed off at him even though he was trying not to let it show. Nicholas wasn't good at diplomacy. When the gas and electric company had come to check it out they used their fancy tools and found a cracked pipe buried three feet beneath the lawn. Nobody ever questioned Nicholas' nose again. 

She should have known that he would smell the change in her.

"No baby," she said gently. "Nothing bad has happened. I just went on the pill, just in case. I thought it was the responsible thing to do." 

She felt his head nodding beside her. She pulled back from their hug and looked at him. He looked tired but his eyes didn't look watery anymore. 

"Did you try out the new mattress yet?" She asked.

He shook his head. They had taken the plastic off it and put it on the bed frame after it was delivered this morning, but that's as far as they'd gotten with the new mattress. 

"Come on," she led him to the bed, picking up a blanket from a box on the ground on the way. She threw the blanket over the bare mattress and laid down on it, opening her arms to him. Nicholas lay down on his side facing her. 

"Comfy?" She asked. 

"Getting there," he replied as he rearranged their limbs so that they were as close as humanly possible. 

"You don't mind being this close to me when I smell like a stinky pregnant woman?" She teased. 

Nicholas shook his head. "You don't smell bad, just different, I just need to get used to it."

Grace leaned in and kissed him on his lips and Nicholas squeezed her body even closer to his. 

"Gracie I am so relieved," he murmured between kisses. "I love you so much milaya." His hand ran up and down her side and squeezed the soft flesh at her waist. 

It felt like so long since they had done this. Laid together and kissed and stroked each other as if time didn't matter. God she had missed him, and she had missed the way he made her feel. Nicholas was gentle with her, but not in a way that made her feel like an invalid. He had a way of talking to her that put her at ease, he talked to her about her body but what he was really doing was asking for permission. 

"How are your boobies today baby?" He asked. 

That meant he wanted to touch her breasts. If she said they were good he would peel off her clothes and kiss and fondle them but if she said they weren't good he would just continue to kiss her on her face and neck and caress her back and sides. He never acted disappointed if she turned him down, he didn't take it personally. Nicholas didn't make her feel like a disappointment for her only intermittent ability to perform.

Today her breasts were aching for him. Her whole body was aching for him. Twelve weeks of missing him and craving him made every touch feel like heaven to her thirsty body. 

"They're good. They missed you Kolya."

He smiled at her. "Mm... I missed them too, but only half as much as I missed you milaya."

He continued to kiss her neck as his hand found its way under her shirt and caressed over the skin of her lower back and then followed the curve of her ribs around and up to her breast. 

Grace held her breath as she waited to see what would happen. She wanted to be okay with intimacy today but she could never tell until that first sexual touch. Sometimes, completely against her will, her brain would flip out and give her a flashback when all she really wanted was to go further with Nicholas. If that happened Nicholas could sense it and he would sit up and pull her into his lap and cradle her like she was a child, all the while talking to her in his deep reliable voice. Then he would kiss her on the head and they would lie together for a while, but they wouldn't try again that day. 

At first Grace had felt bad when that happened, but it didn't seem to bother Nicholas in the least. "We have all our lives to explore each other Gracie," he would tell her, "there's no need to rush." That's one of the things she loved about Nicholas; he was so incredibly patient. He helped her to realize that it was okay to have low expectations of her body's ability to cope. 

When he touched her breasts today all that she felt was pleasure and it made her smile and relax. 

"Mmm..." she sighed. "That feels good baby."

She knew that was the encouragement Nicholas was looking for. He twisted around and sat up with her still in his arms and stripped her shirt off, unclasped her bra and tossed it to the side and lay back down with her. In less than a few seconds she was topless and he was gently kissing and caressing her newly naked skin. Nicholas was so fast and so smooth that it was hard to keep track of him. 

"Hey, no fair," she teased, pulling on his t-shirt. He smiled, sat back up and stripped his shirt off too. 

He was every bit as beautiful as she had remembered, perhaps even more so. His dark features were warm and familiar, his lips spread in to that special smile that he only ever gave to her, his body was hard but tender in its expression. He moved with such fluidity. Every gesture, every motion was effortlessly lithe and backed by a spirit so pure that it boarded on the divine. That her name was grace was a joke. He was the graceful one. Nicholas was the grace she had known all her life. 

She ran her fingers back and forth through his short thick hair as he kissed the tender skin of her shoulders and chest and suckled on her breasts, sending sparks of electricity through her. 

"Oh Nicholas," she moaned. 

She stroked down the smooth skin of his neck and over his muscular shoulders, letting her fingers trace over the indentations between his muscles. She had massaged these muscles before. She had massaged almost every muscle that Nicholas had, including his penis. 

The first time she had talked to him about wanting to touch him down there he had been okay with it, and when she had seen it and touched it she had liked it. Then she talked to him about making him orgasm and she had known that he was scared. He thought the smell of his semen would give her a flashback and he was worried about losing control at a time when she might need him. It was a logical concern but if there was one thing that Grace had figured out it was that fear could only be overcome with confrontation. 

And so Nicholas had let her touch and kiss his penis until he had climaxed, and it hadn't scared her or given her a flashback, although she hadn't exactly smelled it. When she had seen his testicles constrict and he had started pulsing she had put her mouth over the end of it. She didn't know why she had done that, it had just been her impulsive reaction to what she felt sure was about to happen. 

His semen was rich and slightly salty when it passed over her tongue, but it had the aftertaste of almonds. Nicholas' hand was resting reassuringly on her arm and the whole experience reminded her vaguely of trying the steamed liver of monkfish in the Japanese restaurant, and that memory made her feel warm and happy. 

Now the thought of Nicholas' penis and semen was turning her on. That, and the amazing things he was doing to her breasts. He was focusing all of his attention on them, licking and kissing and squeezing them. 

"Gracie," he breathed between kisses, "these are so amazing baby." 

That comment made Grace smile, but it wasn't enough to derail her thoughts. She wanted to see and touch Nicholas' penis. 

She pushed on his shoulders and he allowed her to roll him onto his back. Grace knew how to force his submission from this position but she would never do that to Nicholas, she would never need to. She rolled on top of him but he didn't look comfortable. In her rush to get to the bed she had forgotten pillows. 

"Wait there," she instructed and she got up and rifled through the boxes on the floor until she found one that had bedding in it. 

She walked back to the bed and smiled at the look on Nicholas' face. He was staring glaze-eyed at her boobs, his mouth hanging open. He was definitely a breast guy and no doubt he had noticed that hers had grown almost a cup size in response to the hormones in her birth control pills. 

"Oh milaya..." he breathed.

It amused her. Nicholas was the most polite and respectful man she knew, it was funny to see him openly ogling her body.

She climbed on top of him and settled the pillow beneath his head. His eyes found her face again and he smiled as she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. She let their kiss grow slowly, first just using her lips and then adding the tongue. She kissed him deeply, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and pressing her hips down against the hardness in his pants. 

She moved her mouth over his neck and chest. Nicholas' hands roamed over her body, stroking and squeezing her sides and her breasts, caressing her shoulders and neck. 

"Gracie your body is so amazing..." His voice was a low mumble. "...so luxurious baby, so soft and sexy." 

She kissed lower, over his firm abs and to the top of his jeans that hung low on his hips. She laid a string of soft sloppy kisses from his hip to the top button of his jeans. 

"Mm..." Nicholas moaned. His hands were in her hair now, working on the elastic band that was holding it in a ponytail. Her hair fell haphazardly when he slid the band away and his hands were instantly buried in it. 

She unbuttoned his jeans and slid the zipper down. She looked up at Nicholas and couldn't help but smile at the look on his face. Lust. His eyes were begging with her silently, pleading for her to keep going. She grabbed at the denim and the top of his boxer shorts and he lifted his hips off the bed so she could pull them away. 

Her head was still close to his groin and she felt his penis spring up to meet her. It hit her on her neck, just under her jaw and she turned her face towards it so that its warm silky skin rubbed across her cheek. 

God she loved Nicholas' penis. She had been so happy when she had realized that it didn't scare her or give her flashbacks. Nicholas' penis wasn't a weapon, it was a piece of art. She could touch and kiss and suck on it as much as she wanted without the fear of loosing her head. She actually found it relaxing to give Nicholas a blowjob, relaxing and sensuous and very arousing. 

At first she had been worried about what that said about her. She thought that maybe she was a slut, but Nicholas disagreed. He had almost looked angry when he had told her that he thought it was okay for her to feel that way towards his body and that he felt the same way about hers. For some reason it seemed different for a guy than a girl. It seemed like it would be totally normal for a guy to say, 'I am obsessed with my girlfriend's pussy,' but that it would seem sleazy for a girl to say, 'I can't get enough of my boyfriend's cock.' 

In the end she had just accepted it. She loved Nicholas' penis and whether or not it was a good or a bad thing wasn't going to change that. 

She moved her mouth over him, enjoying his warmth and the texture of his skin as it passed over her tongue. She took him in deeper, concentrating on the delicious sensation of the warmth filling her mouth and the back of her throat. She breathed in time with her strokes so that she could swallow him deep into her windpipe. It felt so... so erotic, so sexy. 

She was getting seriously turned on. Her private parts were so wet that she could feel the dampness down the insides of her thighs. She was throbbing with desire. Her skin felt hot and prickly. 

She wanted him so badly. She wanted to take her pants off and straddle his hips and feel him fill her up. It was all that she could think of. Having him in her mouth wasn't enough anymore, now she wanted him in her body. She could ask him. He always talked to her before trying something new, so if she was going to do it she should ask him about it first. It was just Nicholas, he wouldn't tease her or hurt her feelings. 

She pulled back from him and looked up at his face. His eyes were only half open and he was breathing heavily from his open mouth. 

"Kolya can I see what it feels like inside me?" She asked. 

He blinked a few times, obviously having difficulty registering her question. "Inside? Like inside your who-ha?" 

She smiled. Only Nicholas could so innocently humor her in such a situation. "Yeah... just to try it... just to see what it feels like."

"Um..." He still looked lost, obviously he hadn't been expecting this. "Yeah. Okay. If that's what you want." 

She nodded and he finally smiled and nodded back. 

Grace stood up and unbuttoned and pulled her jeans and underwear off. She climbed back on top of Nicholas with a weird mixture of nervousness and desire swirling in her gut. 

His hands stroked over her sides and she leaned down and kissed him again. 

"Are you okay with this?" She asked. 

"Yeah, a little surprised, but I'm okay. Are you?" 

"I'm a bit nervous now. I wanted it before but now I'm nervous," she confessed.

Nicholas stroked her hair back off her face. "It's okay baby, we don't have to do it today, there will be plenty more days to try." 

She nodded, suddenly relieved. Maybe she wasn't ready for that yet after all. 

"Do you want me to touch your who-ha?" He asked. "Do you want me to try and make you cum?" 

"Not yet, let me finish you first." She was always more relaxed when he touched her right after she'd just finished giving him a blowjob. 

Nicholas smiled that beautiful toothy smile of his. "I wont argue with that." 

She went back to his penis, but this time she didn't give him such a warm-up. She took him deep into her throat and involuntarily moaned at the feeling of him. She tried to keep her mind on the task at hand but her whole body was tingling with need. 

It was just that Nicholas was so beautiful. She wanted him inside her, she wanted to know what it felt like with him inside her. She didn't know if she would want to move around as if they were having sex, she just wanted to try it. 

They had already talked about it and so she just made the decision herself. She sat up and swung her leg over his hips and without thinking again she clutched his penis and held it steady as she lowered herself over him. 

She was so wet and he was so hard that it slid inside as if that were its usual home. There was resistance, but her body didn't fight against him, it accepted him. It felt like he belonged there. It felt so right. 

"Grace!" Nicholas' eyes shot open and she saw the pleasure flash across his eyes as he registered what was happening. "Ugh... Gracie, baby."

Nicholas felt amazing inside her. He was warm and solid and he stretched her out in a way that was so filling and felt so good. It was an epiphany. That is the only way Grace knew how to describe it. In that moment the rest of the world ceased to exist. There was only Grace and Nicholas. 

She knew with absolute certainty that Nicholas loved her and looking at him now she could not imagine a scenario that could separate them. She would do anything to stay with Nicholas, to have him like this, and give herself to him in whatever ways that she could. There was no other option. Nicholas was her future. 

Grace never let her eyes stray from Nicholas. In the bright light of day his irises were a deep warm brown, and his chest rose and fell rapidly beneath her hands. His heart, the one that he had given her on her birthday, was beating quickly and she leaned down and kissed his chest over the spot where it lived. 




3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15



Her hips rocked back and forth instinctually, each stroke brought a burst of warmth to her center and caused her palms and the soles of her feet to tingle. She kissed up his neck and to his mouth and then across his cheek and to his ear, which she sucked on and bit gently between her teeth. Her hair fell messily across his face. 

"Kolya," she whispered to him, "I love you so much baby." 

When she climaxed she was sitting above him and her fingers were interlaced with his. She consciously forced her eyes to stay open and watched Nicholas' brow wrinkle and his mouth open as he succumbed to his own orgasm. 

She felt the tug of some far off fear gripping at the edges of her consciousness but she breathed deeply and forced her eyes to stay open and focused solely on Nicholas. He was watching her, his eyes clouded with emotion. 

"Oh Gracie," he murmured. He sat up and enclosed her in his embrace, kissing her face and neck and murmuring her name over and over again. "Gracie I love you so much baby," he told her. "You are such a good girl milaya." His hands stroked up and down her naked back as he kissed her and whispered his reassuring words. 

She didn't know why she loved it so much when he told her that she was a good girl. She supposed it would probably be considered a weird thing for a lover to say. Most girls would probably find it degrading, but she didn't. She needed to hear it and she loved to hear it. She stroked her hands through his bristly hair and kissed him back on his forehead, his shoulder, his cheek, his lips. 

She sat in his lap kissing with him for a long time and then they lay back down on the blanket and he continued to kiss her softly and whisper of his love for her. She felt special and warm and safe in Nicholas' arms. 

When she woke later the room was shadowy and the blanket and Nicholas' body were wrapped around her. She felt his cock pressing into the naked flesh of her buttocks. 

"Mm..." she sighed. "Nicholas, you are an insatiable child." 

She felt his chest vibrate against her back as he chuckled at her reference to what his dad would always say to him when they were children and Nicholas wanted to continue playing well beyond when everyone else had gotten bored with a game. 

His arms tightened around her, squeezing her into a hug and he kissed her on the back of her neck and shoulders. She pushed her hips back and ground them against his groin in response.

When she had woken with his erection pressing against her there was only one thought that raced through her mind: how to get it inside of her again. It didn't seem like it was going to be that much of a challenge, Nicholas was already moving his hips in time with her and she felt the warmth of his penis sliding between her thighs in search of her entrance. 

He was still kissing her neck and his hand stroked up and down from her hip to her ribs and back again. "Are your boobies still okay?" He whispered into her ear. 

"Uh-huh." 

His hand slipped over her belly and up to her breasts and squeezed one roughly. She gasped from the pleasure and opened her legs for him. 

"Mm..." Nicholas sighed as he moved away from her and rolled her onto her back, settling himself between her legs. He pressed the head of his penis against her opening. "Okay?" he asked. 

"Yeah." She nodded as she looked up into his familiar reliable eyes. 

He pushed it inside her slowly and she moaned in relief. 

Nicholas closed his eyes and groaned as his forehead wrinkled. "Oh Grace," he breathed, "I have no idea how we are going to pass our classes this semester." 

He was right. Now that Grace had felt the bliss of having Nicholas inside her she wanted him all the time, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Sleeping in the same bed every night had become a challenge. All she wanted to do was to make love to him. She knew that she needed sleep but her body didn't seem to be interested in that, all it wanted was Nicholas. 

When she woke up in the mornings after just a few hours of sleep instead of getting up and readying herself for rowing practice she would turn to him and wrap her legs around him and bury his beautiful penis inside her. More than once she silently thanked her mother for insisting that she should try the birth control pill. 

She was late for practice more than once. She fell asleep in lectures more than once. Occasionally she would just give up, skip a class and go home to sleep in the middle of the day, but one day when she did that she found Nicholas asleep in the bed and that was the end of his nap and the beginning of their midday rendezvous. 

Not even a flashback could deter Grace now. Every now and then she would have one and Nicholas would stop and cradle her and stroke her hair, but when it was over she would climb on top of him and make love to him. She never had flashbacks when they did it that way. 

They found that there were some positions that brought flashbacks more often than others. Anytime she couldn't see him was problematic, so doing it with him behind was pretty much out until he brought a full-length mirror home with him one day. He hung it on the wall beside the bed. Grace was skeptical but she found the mirror much less intimidating than she had imagined. She didn't mind looking at her body as much as she used to and she loved watching Nicholas make love to her. 

Paradoxically the other position that bothered her was the missionary one, when he was covering her whole body. There didn't seem to be a solution for that so they rarely did it that way. 

It was an amazing time in her life. She felt like she had been walking on egg shells for the past two years and now she was finally able to relax and be herself again. Of course she wasn't the same Grace as before the rape, nothing could bring that Grace back, but she was happy and she was feeling optimistic about the future. She was starting to think that she had put it all behind her, until that phone call. 

It was your average Thursday evening. They had met at the dojo for aikido practice, then when they got home they'd made love and some time in there her phone had rung. She had ignored it, as was their custom, but when she checked it later her legs had folded under her and she had been lucky that she had done enough aikido training that she had instinctively tucked into a roll. Nicholas found her sitting on the floor with her phone dropped between her legs when he came out from his shower. 

"What's the matter Gracie?" He asked. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"It was the police," she responded. "They have a suspect they want me to pick out of a lineup."

Nicholas thought that was a good thing. He didn't understand. Grace didn't want to go back to that night. She relived it enough as it was, she didn't want to see one of them and make it all feel real and close and frightening again. She wanted to move on with her life, she was moving on with her life. She wasn't going to do it. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It had been the first real fight they'd had. Life had gone on of course, nothing can stop the steady march of time, but Nicholas and Grace had faltered. They kept up their routine, he still walked her to rowing in the mornings, they went to aikido practice with their sensei a few nights a week and on Sundays they practiced with Adrian and Sarah. They still ate together and slept together and occasionally they had sex, but it was not the same as it had been. Their life was veiled in sadness. 

Nicholas thought she was being selfish. He understood that seeing one of her attackers would be traumatic and would probably set back her recovery, but if the suspect really was a rapist he needed to be put behind bars and Grace might be the only person who could do that. 

He tried every angle he could think of. He pleaded with her, he told her that it might be good for her recovery, he begged her to do it for the sake of other women, he even asked her mom to talk to her about it. Nothing seemed to work. 

To make a bad situation worse, Grace thought Nicholas was being a hypocrite. They fought over Mariko, over the fact that Nicholas had never gone to the police or even written the letter that he said he would after she had forced herself on him. She was right. Nicholas knew he should have done something about the incident with Mariko but he never did, he just wanted to forget the whole thing. 

Sometimes when they fought they got into yelling matches but more often it was just a short exchange, just a few sentences that cut to the core and left one or both of them in tears. It is amazing how just a few choice words from the person you love can be more devastating than a barrage by anyone else. 

One night she turned to him in bed. They hadn't fought that night but she had been crying again nonetheless. 

"Nicholas, please don't hate me," she begged, her voice cracking with emotion. 

He put his arms around her and held her close. "I don't hate you Grace," he assured her in his kindest voice, "not even close. I love you milaya, I always will." He kissed her on her hair. 

"I don't want to do it Kolya, I just want to forget that it ever happened." 

He stroked her tangled hair back off her face. "Gracie, why do you practice aikido?"

She seemed surprised by the question. "So I can defend myself if I need to." 

"Hmm..." He thought carefully about how to phrase his next question. "You know when Sensei talks about your warrior spirit, what do you think she's talking about?" 

Grace didn't answer right away, there was a pause and then she said, "I guess she's talking about the part of you that comes out when you're in a fight." 

"That's what I think too," he agreed, "but I don't think she's always talking about physical fights. There are wars going on all around us, even inside us. I think our warrior spirit is the part of us that stands up against things that we know are wrong, even small things, like when the clerk accidentally gives you too much change in a store and you know you could take that money and nobody would ever know, but your warrior is the part that tells you that is wrong and makes you give it back." 

"So? What are you trying to say?" She asked defensively. 

"I think you have a strong warrior spirit Gracie." He kissed her forehead and relaxed into the bed, signifying to her that he had said all he wanted to and was ready for sleep. 

In a way it had been a sly move. Grace respected their Sensei, she was an authority figure but she was more than that, she was a kind of life coach, somebody whose words were full of meaning to Grace. Maybe if he could get her to talk to their Sensei about it she could make her see sense.

Nicholas was starting to drift into sleep when Grace spoke again. "O-Sensei said that you should never attack. An attack is proof that you are out of control. Wouldn't testifying against this person be like an attack?" 

Nicholas blinked his eyes open and tried to arrange his thoughts in his head. "I think you should think more broadly milaya. When he raped you two years ago, think of that as the attack, but not just a physical attack against you, an attack against all people. When he hurt you he hurt all of the good people in the world, all of the people who want to be safe and want their friends and families to be safe." 

"So you think that if I testify that would be like a blend, like I would just be neutralizing an aggressor?" She asked. 

"Yeah, I guess so. But I think the important thing to remember here is that he is not just your foe, he is the enemy of every good person on this earth." 

Grace was silent.

"Do you remember when I read that book about the paratroopers in World War Two?" 

"Mm." She said it without enthusiasm and it made Nicholas smile. He had become truly absorbed in David Kenyon Webster's autobiography and couldn't stop talking about it for weeks, he knew Grace had gotten sick of hearing about it. 

"There was a line in that book that I will never forget. He said, 'Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice.'

"Gracie..." Nicholas continued. "I know you don't want to fight, I know it would be a huge sacrifice for you, but you are the only one who can protect the rest of us. Think about the things that are precious in life and then ask your warrior if you can not fight." 

The next evening Grace asked to talk to their Sensei privately after practice. Nicholas helped the Senpai to clean the dojo while he waited for her. When they came out of the private room that was used as an office Sensei's eyes were red and puffy but Grace had a look of resolve about her. He had a feeling that she had made up her mind. 

"Sensei agreed with you," Grace told him as they walked home. "I'll do it." 

Now that he could see the pain that Grace was going through Nicholas wondered if he still would have pushed her to testify if he had known the extent of her sacrifice. She was a mess. The nightmares were back in full force, she had flashbacks almost daily, she needed him to accompany her for tasks that she had been doing on her own for over a year. 

Charlotte, their aikido Sensei, was a godsend. She became a regular fixture in their life, always there to offer support and encouraging words. She ate with them regularly and sometimes Grace wanted her to accompany her to the meetings with the District Attorney instead of Nicholas. He tried not to be offended when that happened, he tried to think of it as a female thing. 

As the court date neared Grace's anxiety level sky rocketed. She hardly ate, she rarely slept and she always seemed to be distracted. She dropped one of her elective classes because she was failing it. She asked her coach if she could take the rest of the semester off for personal reasons. Nicholas was not sure of how wise that decision was, rowing had always been Grace's escape. 

"I can't concentrate," she told him, "it's only a matter of time before I crash the boat. Besides, it's not fair to the rowers if my head isn't in the game, they could do better than me right now." 

Charlotte Sensei suggested that she try meditation and that seemed to offer some small slice of solace. Grace spent almost all of her free time with Charlotte now and Nicholas thought that was probably a good thing. All of their arguments had turned her testimony into a very touchy subject between them, something that she seemed to take offence to no matter his intention or approach. 

Nicholas knew that Grace needed someone else to talk to and rely on, he had burned all of the bridges he was entitled to when it came to this issue, and Charlotte was a good person for the job. She had a very similar life philosophy to Nicholas' and he knew that it was good for Grace to have a woman friend to help her through this.

Even though they only saw him once or twice a week, Adrian caught on pretty quickly that there was something wrong. Nicholas took him aside and explained the situation and Adrian insisted that he wanted to come to court to support Grace. Grace just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Whatever." 

So there were four of them with her for the long stressful wait outside the courtroom on that rainy October day, Nicholas, Grace's mom, Charlotte and Adrian. Grace sat very still and closed her eyes, he assumed that she must be using a meditation technique to calm herself. 

There was another group waiting outside the courtroom with a different nervous woman at its core. Nicholas knew that Patrick Riley McCarran was on trial for multiple counts of rape and battery and he assumed that this other nervous woman must be another victim who was willing to testify. He wondered how many more there were who were too afraid to come to court. 

Grace was the last one to be called to testify. Her skin was pale and she had a terrified glint in her eye. She looked like she was about to throw up. 

Nicholas wanted to go to her and tell her that he loved her and that he always would, but Grace turned to Charlotte instead. Charlotte whispered something in her ear and Grace nodded and walked away. Nicholas' chest constricted painfully, he couldn't help but feel responsible for the pain she was going through. 

He sat between Grace's mom Emma and Adrian on the hard wooden bench seats while he watched Grace testify. McCarran was sitting in the defendant's chair beside his lawyer. He looked a little rough around the edges, he had a tattoo that was visible above the starched collar of his suit and a large scar on his left hand, but apart from that he looked like a pretty normal white guy in his early twenties.

The prosecutor walked Grace through her testimony first. It was so painful to watch and to hear. Grace looked at nobody but the prosecutor the entire time. She was so brave, much braver than Nicholas. The prosecutor asked the most personal questions and she just looked at him and answered them in a quiet shaky voice. 

Nicholas put his arm around Emma when he realized that she was crying and she leaned into him. He watched Adrian flex his fists and he could swear he could hear his teeth grinding. Charlotte was sitting on the other side of Emma and Nicholas couldn't really see how she was reacting, all he could see were her hands resting palms down on her thighs. 

The whole experience made his stomach churn. He wanted to run up to the witness stand and put his body between Grace and the rest of the world. He wanted to protect her and make the pain stop for her, and for him and everyone else, but he knew this was something that must be done. McCarran had to be prosecuted and put away where he belonged and Grace was the only one who could do that. 

The prosecutor did not take very long. It turned out that McCarran was a dumb fucker who hadn't used a condom and the prosecution had genetic evidence against him, Grace's testimony was really just to attest to the terribly violent nature of the crime. It was only fifteen minutes before he turned the floor over to the defending lawyer. 

The defense lawyer was a smooth asshole. He tried to peck at Grace's testimony to get her to make a mistake, to say something inconsistent that might show that she was unreliable. It was a pretty tough job for him given the mountain of evidence that had been collected at the hospital that night that very clearly proved that Grace had been violently raped and badly beaten. 

When it became clear that Grace's story was the truth the defense tried to call her character into question. He tried to insinuate that she was not a reliable person, but the prosecutor kept on objecting. The defense's last-ditch attempt to rattle Grace was the most damaging. 

"It seems inadvisable to me to take the word of a person whose parents are in fact siblings," he told the jury. 

"Objection!" The prosecutor cried. 

Nicholas felt Emma stiffen under his arm. 

But the defense soldiered on. "A person whose parents' marriage would be illegal in forty-nine of the states. Whose parents would be imprisoned for the crime of incest if they resided here in Massachusetts." 

"Objection! Your honor, I object!" The prosecutor was standing, angry and pleading with the judge. 

"Sustained," the judge ruled. "Strike it from the record." 

But the record couldn't be struck for Grace. She sat with her mouth open and her head cocked to the side, incomprehension on her face while she stared at her mother. 

Thankfully that was the end of the defense lawyer's line of questioning, and since Grace was the last witness for the day they all stood while the judge left and then everyone filed out of the room. 

Nicholas felt the waves of tension coming off Adrian and Emma as they waited for Grace. Charlotte stood motionless beside Adrian, looking at the floor. 

Nicholas thought that it was bad luck that McCarran decided to walk past them, but later he would question that assumption. There were two exits to the building, the lawyer really should have taken McCarran to the one that didn't take him past the witness' families. 




3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15



The physical part was over before anyone else figured out what was going on. Adrian was such a big clutz and the anger was pouring off him, it was obvious to Nicholas what he was going to do. The right hook would have made its mark, it would have connected with McCarran's face and sent him flying a few feet backwards. Nicholas simply stepped forward, intercepted the punch at his wrist and redirected Adrian's momentum downwards, took his balance, flipped him onto his back and rolled him over into a vertical arm pin. 

"What the fuck dude?" Adrian complained angrily from his immobilized position. "That fucker does all that shit to Gracie and you protect him?" 

"Calm down Adrian," Nicholas said in his most even and authoritative voice. "I'm not protecting him I'm protecting you. You were about to land yourself in jail for assault over some miserable asshole who is going to get what's coming to him in the state prison anyway." 

There was a low chuckle from above them and Nicholas looked up to see McCarran with an evil smirk on his face. "Nah, I'm good," he said in a self satisfied tone, "that little whore is the one who'll get what's coming to her." 

It was the first time Nicholas had felt rage. Pure hatred boiled behind his eyes and there was an awful heat that burst forth from the back of his skull, causing his ears to ring. He felt his body tingle with the need for blood. 

It would not help Grace, he reminded himself. If Nicholas let McCarran get to him he would kill him and then he would go to prison. It would not be possible for Nicholas to simply strike like an ordinary person. He could not just break McCarran's nose or give him a black eye, he would kill him, he would fracture his skull so badly that the internal bleeding would not be able to be stopped. Nicholas would go to prison and Grace would be alone. 

Adrian struggled beneath him and it was a good thing. If Adrian hadn't been there for Nicholas to need to control he might have lost control of himself. He forced his eyes shut and focused on his breathing. He was not going to kill that man, he did not deserve the swift death that Nicholas would deliver. He was going to crouch here and concentrate on breathing evenly and holding Adrian in his pinned position until this feeling had passed. 

He didn't know how long it had been when Charlotte laid her hand on his shoulder and said, "O-tsukare-sama deshita." 

Nicholas didn't actually know what it meant, just that it was what she always said at the end of aikido practice. Adrian wasn't struggling under him anymore. He guessed that it must be over. He opened his eyes and released Adrian's arm, laying it in the small off his back and stood. Adrian stood beside him and glared at him angrily then turned to Emma. 

"Please tell Grace that I think she is very brave and that I will call her tomorrow," he requested. 

Emma nodded and Adrian turned and stalked off without ever looking at Nicholas again. 

"Nicholas, how did you do that?" Charlotte asked. 

He was confused. "What do you mean? It was just an improvised version of kote gaeshi, it was one of the first things you taught me."

She shook her head. "No, I mean how did you get from two steps behind him to his side so quickly? You reacted before he even began his attack, how did you know he was going to do that at exactly the right time?"

Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, wasn't it obvious?" 

Charlotte stared at him with a look of disbelief on her face. Nicholas didn't know what her problem was, wasn't she supposed to be a martial arts master? Shouldn't she know these things?

A door opening behind them and a guard emerging with Grace broke the moment. She looked exhausted. This time Nicholas didn't bother to wait and see whom she wanted to go to, he walked straight over to her and embraced her. She put her arms around his waist but she didn't really hug him back, she just stood there waiting. 

"I want to go home," she said flatly. 

And that's the way she was for the rest of the day. The only time she showed any sign of emotion was when she asked her mother about what the defense lawyer had said. 

"Is it true about dad?" She asked. "Is he your brother?"

Emma cringed. "Yes, he's my adoptive brother." 

"What happened to no qualifiers mom?" She asked bitterly. "Aren't you the one who insists that the people we're raised with are our real family?"

Emma nodded meekly. "Okay... Sam is my brother." 

Grace's face twisted into a scowl. "That's disgusting." 

Nicholas reached for Grace's hand. He didn't want her to say something that she would later regret. "Gracie, I know it's weird at first, but when you think about it it's not that different from you and I."

Grace whipped her head around and looked him with wide incredulous eyes. "You knew about this?" 

Oh shit. He'd forgotten that might be an issue. 

"You knew about this and you didn't tell me?" She asked, her voice full of anger. 

"I found out by accident."

"How?" Emma asked. 

"It was a coincidence. I met a friend of yours from college on set last summer, Brian Thomson, he's a screenwriter. When I told him that you are my aunty he asked if I was Sam's son."

"Brian?" Emma asked. 

"Yeah, he said to tell you hello." 

Grace's angry voice interrupted their exchange. "So you've know about this since the summer and you didn't tell me for all that time. Were you ever going to tell me?" 

Nicholas didn't know how to answer that, at this point he guessed the truth was probably the best way to go. "I don't think so. I decided that it was none of my business. I didn't want to start a family feud."

Grace's mouth dropped open from shock. "You weren't going to tell me?" She whispered. 

Shit. He should have lied to her. He should have told her that he was just waiting for the right time. "I... I thought about forcing your parents to tell you themselves but it didn't seem right."

"Did it seem right that I was the only one who didn't know about this?" 

Nicholas didn't answer. He was in deep shit and he didn't know how to get himself out of it, or if he even deserved to be out of it. 

"Is there anything else you're not telling me? Are there other secrets you're keeping from me?" She asked. 

"Um... yeah. My mom is pregnant. I'm going to have a sister." 

Emma's face softened but Grace's remained set with anger. "So you keep the good things from me as well as the bad." 

"Gracie, please," he begged. "I found out about that by accident too and dad asked me not to tell anyone." 

"And I'm just anyone?" 

Damn it, why couldn't he say anything right? "Of course not milaya, but it was their secret, it wasn't mine to tell." 

Grace threw her hands up in the air, then turned and walked out of the room. "I'm going to bed." 

Nicholas heard the door to the guest room slam shut and he turned to Emma. "Do you think I should have told her?"

Emma sighed and nodded. "Yes." 

Nicholas exhaled heavily and flopped down onto the couch. "I thought about it but in the end I decided that it was none of my business. It doesn't change who you are, I didn't want Grace to see you and Sam differently because of it."

"Mm... that probably should have been her decision to make." Emma sat at the other end of the couch. "So your mom is pregnant again? I thought she was looking a bit portly."

"Yeah, dad's really stressed out about it. At first he was worried about the baby having some horrible disease because mom is kind of old to be having a kid, but they had all of the tests and it seems like she is okay, so now he's moved on to worrying about how to look after a girl. I think Grace getting raped really changed him. I think my little sister is going to be lucky if she is ever let out of the house at all. He has already asked me how old she needs to be before she can start taekwondo lessons. " 

Emma chuckled. "Ah Tyler. He always has been a worrier." 

Nicholas slept alone that night and Emma slept with Grace in the guest room. It hadn't surprised him, but it had still hurt. Later he would think of it as being ironic. He and Grace had slept together so that he could protect her for such a long time and then on the one night that she actually needed protection she had chosen to sleep elsewhere. 

As soon as he woke up he knew that there was something wrong. It was 1:21 a.m. according to the alarm clock, and the air in the apartment just felt wrong. The little wispy hairs on his arms and the back of his neck were standing up in alert. Nicholas slipped out of bed and very carefully opened the bedroom door. 

There was a noise in the living room. It could have just been Grace or Emma but something was telling him that there was danger ahead. There was an intruder in their apartment. Nicholas moved down the hallway, keeping to the darkest wall. 

He heard a whisper. So there were two of them in the living room. He passed the kitchen and smelled something that made his heart jump. McCarran was in their kitchen. Of course it might have been a different smoker who also wore that awful gaudy aftershave, but for some reason he felt sure that it was McCarran. 

He paused for a moment. Should he take care of McCarran first, or the two guys in the living room? He caught sight of movement in the living room, it was a large man holding a gun in front of him as if he were a cop in a movie and in that split second he decided to clean up the living room first. 

After that decision, he didn't even think. He knew he would kill these men. Unknowingly he had been training for this moment all his life. 

His first target was close to the couch. He ran on the balls of his feet and spun into a tornado kick off his right leg, which was his dominant side. Nicholas' foot impacted swiftly with the side of the intruder's head at the temple and he felt the bones of his skull fold under the force of the blow.

There was a thud as the strike was made and then the man slumped to the ground making a straggled moan as he went down. He was not getting up after that. Nicholas quickly ducked to keep himself hidden behind the couch from the man on the other side of the room. He kept one eye on the kitchen too.

"Jessup, what are you doing?" Nicholas heard a whisper from the other side of the room. 

Jessup was either unconscious or already dead so of course he didn't reply. 

Nicholas listened carefully as the second man stumbled towards him.

"Jessup, stop fucking around. Where are you?" He whispered. The second man must have been right on the other side of the couch now. 

Nicholas stood quickly and assessed the distance between himself and the second intruder. The other man was holding a gun outstretched in front of him in both hands, as if that could protect him now. He wasn't as close as Nicholas had hoped, but it wasn't a problem. He vaulted over the couch, landing just feet away from the other man, and turned immediately into a simple side kick to the head. 

It was so easy it was ridiculous. In war movies and in books the hero always talks about how difficult it is to take a life, about the internal struggle, how hard it is to pull the trigger, but that wasn't Nicholas' experience. These men were here to kill Grace, it was easy to take their lives. He felt the man's face collapse under his foot and the intruder staggered backwards towards the coffee table. Nicholas changed his stance and delivered a roundhouse kick with his left foot to the back of the man's skull and watched him collapse onto the coffee table. 

Again there was a muffled moan but this time there was a clatter as the man fell. Shit. Nicholas had left a mug on the coffee table. Grace was always bugging him to take his used cups into the kitchen but for some reason he always left them out. It actually wasn't a bad thing. Now McCarran would be tempted to come to the living room rather than go down the hallway to the bedrooms.

What happened next must have only taken a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity to Nicholas. 

McCarran emerged from the kitchen, holding his gun pointed up at the ceiling. He turned towards the living room. 

"Jessup, Danny, what are you fucking around for?" He whispered. It was dark in the apartment and McCarran hadn't realized that he was the only one of the group still alive. 

Nicholas was waiting for McCarran to take a step into the living room to put him in safe striking distance when he heard a door click open. 

"Kolya?" 

Oh fuck, no. 

Grace stepped into the hallway and flicked on the light. 

McCarran turned towards her and lowered his gun in front of him. 

"No!" Nicholas heard his own voice as a distant cry, but the shot had already been fired. 

Before he knew how he had gotten there Nicholas was behind McCarran and his foot was planted firmly in the back of his neck. He felt the crunch of vertebrae and McCarran crumbled to the floor, his gun flying out to the side when he dropped it. 

Nicholas rushed forward to Grace. She was lying on the floor at the end of the hallway. There was blood everywhere. Grace's blood was everywhere. Her eyes were only half open. Nicholas knelt down beside her and tried to stop the blood but he didn't know where it was coming from, her pajama top was quickly turning red. 

"Grace?" Emma was awake. "Nicholas? What was that?" 

"Emma help!" Nicholas tried to remain calm but it was futile. Grace was dying, she was bleeding to death in front of him. He felt the panic coursing through his veins. 

"Oh my god!" Emma cried. 

Nicholas looked up at her helplessly. "Ambulance." 

Emma nodded and turned to look for her phone. 

"Gracie, baby stay with me," Nicholas begged as he looked for the wound. "Please Grace. Please baby, I'll do anything, just stay with me." He was blabbering and crying. Emma was on the phone giving their address. 

He searched frantically for the source of the blood and finally found the wound and pressed his hand over it. He could feel her warm blood seeping through his fingers. 

"Kolya," Grace whispered weakly. Nicholas looked up at her face, she was looking at him and she had a small smile on her lips. She moved her hand towards his face and he caught it with his free hand and pressed it to his cheek. 

"Gracie, milaya, please don't leave me," he pleaded. He turned his face and kissed her palm. "Please Gracie, please..." The tears were streaming down his face and dropping on her bloodied red body. 

"Please Grace..." His voice broke as he begged for something that he knew she could not give him. 

Her eyes faltered and shut and Nicholas knew his life was over. 

"Gracie," he cried as he dropped her hand and shook her shoulder. "Gracie, come back, please come back to me." Her head lolled as he shook her. 

Emma sank to her knees beside Grace's head, she was weeping as only a mother could, her cries of agony echoing around the small apartment.

Nicholas heard the front door of their apartment building click open and he instantly knew that there was another one. Of course there would be another, Grace had said there were four of them. 

Nicholas was tempted to let the man come and kill him. There was no reason to live now anyway. But Emma was here. Emma was Sam's Grace, she was Matthew, Micah and Oliver's mother. He couldn't let anyone hurt her. 

He kissed Grace on the forehead, stood up and walked from the apartment, grabbing the broom from the hallway closet on his way out. 

He found the fourth one in the stairwell right outside their front door. He knew he had the right person because of the gun that roughly matched those of his fallen comrades. This guy turned out to be trigger happy, probably the reason he was driving the get away car, he seemed to be somewhat of a loose canon. 

Nicholas wasn't afraid, there was no need to be. His life was already ruined. Honestly, what was the worst thing that could happen? He almost wished that he would get shot so that he wouldn't have to face the rest of his life with out Grace, without the one person who made living worthwhile. 

The sound of bullets leaving the barrel of the handgun reverberated around the stairwell as Nicholas beat the shit out of the fourth guy with the handle of the broom. He was sick of using his feet, the broom handle was just so much more... pleasing to the senses. He was really glad that he had done all of that weapons training earlier in the year. 

Nicholas watched with a sense of detached fascination as blood and teeth splattered on the wall of the stairwell. There was only one strike left now. The guy was pretty much already dead, his body just hadn't caught up to the fact yet. Nicholas wanted to push him down the stairs, somehow that seemed like a fitting end, but it wasn't practical. He didn't want Emma to see this man. The other ones were probably okay, there wouldn't be much blood with those, but this one was beaten to a pummel, she'd probably have nightmares if she saw this body. 

Nicholas sighed, stepped behind the man, turned his body at the same time as swinging the broom above his head and thrust the sweeping end of the broom into his back, causing him to fall head first onto the flight of stairs that led to the apartment above them. He watched the body for a few seconds and seeing that it was still he dropped the broom on top of it and went back inside to sit beside Grace. 

The apartment smelled like blood, sweet, tangy blood. Emma was still huddled at the end of the hallway with Grace's head in her lap, stroking the hair off her pale lifeless face and wailing in distress. 

Nicholas sat down beside Grace's body and put his arms around her and laid his head on her chest. She was covered in blood and she was still warm, he could almost imagine that she was still alive. He squeezed her tight and pressed himself into her as if he could will her back to life. 

And then he heard it. Her heart. Her heart was beating. Grace wasn't dead, she was just unconscious. A new wave of panic spread over Nicholas. If Grace was alive that meant his responsibility to keep her alive was still in tact. What could he do to keep her alive? 

Thankfully he heard sirens in the distance. They would arrive at the front of the apartment and try to get a stretcher up here for her, that is, after they had determined that all of those intruders were dead. He would not have Grace come second to those assholes. 

"Emma, we've got to get her downstairs so that they can take her straight to hospital." 

Emma wasn't listening, or she wasn't computing what she was hearing, she just sat there and wept loudly. 

Nicholas scooped his arms under Grace and picked her up. She was completely limp. It was actually quite difficult to carry someone who was unconscious, she kept on slipping, of course this might have something to do with the amount of blood lubricating her body. 

"Emma, I need your help." 

The movement had snapped Emma out of it. She nodded up at him dumbly. 

"I need you to hold her head while I carry her down to the ambulance, can you do that?" 

Emma stood up and nodded. 

"You need to concentrate Emma, look only at Grace's head, okay?" 

"Okay." Emma's voice was dry from all of the wailing. 

"I'm serious Emma, you can only look at Grace's face." 

Emma nodded and looked down at Grace's head, which she had cradled in her hands. Nicholas moved slowly and carefully through the apartment. He had Emma open the door but made sure she kept her eyes on Grace. They walked down the stairs one at a time. This had less to do with the need to move slowly than the need to keep Emma focused so she wouldn't look up and see the dead man in the stairwell. 

The ambulance pulled up just before they got to the front door of the building. The siren blared loudly and the EMT guys quickly got Grace onto a stretcher and in the ambulance. Nicholas shoved Emma in behind her. He didn't know if she had her phone on her, or what she was going to do at the hospital, but it was better than having her at the apartment with all of those dead bodies around. 




3. The Grace I've Known Ch. 13-15



The police were there only moments later and then a second ambulance.

"Holy crap," one of the EMTs swore under his breath when he saw the guy in the stairwell. 

"Is he dead?" His partner asked. 

The first EMT donned plastic gloves and leaned over to search the man's neck for a pulse. "Yeah, stone cold. What about the ones inside?" 

"Yeah, they're all dead too." 

"What about you buddy?" The first EMT asked Nicholas. "Are you okay? Is that your blood?" 

Nicholas shook his head, he was covered in blood but it was all Grace's. "No, it's not my blood. I'm fine." 

The EMTs looked at each other, shrugged and walked away. 

The police were a different story. Of course they needed details. They needed every single little detail they could get. Nicholas asked for a minute to get his thoughts together and decided to call Sam. He had a right to know. He was unbelievably calm as Nicholas told him what had happened. It was weird. Tell the man his daughter had been raped and he flies off the handle and punches his best friend in the face, tell him his daughter has been shot and he is cool as a cucumber. 

"I'll be on the first flight in the morning," Sam assured him. "Do you know which hospital they took her to?" 

"No."

"Okay, don't worry about it, I'll call around and find out, then I'll let you know." 

"Okay." 

"Nicholas..." There was a pause. "I think you should call your Aunty Julia, ask her to find you a good lawyer and don't say anything to the police until you get representation. You never know how these things will pan out." 

It was probably good advice. Nicholas knew that he was only defending Grace and Emma, but the staggering number of corpses around the place might lead one to wonder otherwise. 

Nicholas told Martinez, the police officer in charge, that he wanted to go to the hospital and he nodded his approval. He changed clothes and couldn't decide what to do with the bloody ones. He wanted to keep them. He knew that was weird and perverted but there was a pretty good chance that Grace would die. Her blood might be the only thing he would have left of her. 

In the end he threw the bloody clothes in the laundry hamper, he would have time to decide what to do with them later. He went to the guest room and pulled clothes from Emma's suitcase to take with him.

"Sir?" Nicholas tried to be polite when he addressed Officer Martinez. 

"Yeah?" 

"Do you know how I would find out which hospital they took her to?" 

Martinez held up a finger and spoke a bunch of acronyms into the radio on his shoulder. There was a pause and then the crackly response over the radio. "Beth Israel." 

Nicholas nodded, thanked him and turned to leave. He would call a cab once he got outside. 

"Wait, Nicholas..." 

Nicholas turned back to him. 

"How did you do it kid?" He motioned to the dead bodies.

Nicholas was about to explain but then he remembered what Sam had said about a lawyer. "Who said I did anything?" 

Martinez looked him up and down, apparently evaluating him, and then he nodded. "Davis?" He called out.

"Yeah?" A second police officer looked up from where he was examining a body. 

"Take this kid over to Beth Israel would you?"