A/N: As a long time fan-fiction reader, this is the first of my many attempts I deem worthy of posting. Takes place the day after Judith's party, I assume it's now Sunday. No beta, so all the mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just had to take them around the block

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would you catch me if I fall out of what I fell in

don't be surprised if I collapse down at your feet again

I don't want to run away from this

I know that I just don't need this

--- Somewhere in Between - Lifehouse

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Chapter1: Persistence

"She's screening her calls. She hasn't answered her phone all day." Luke sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He pointed the antenna end of the phone toward his bother and slumped dejectedly back against the kitchen sink.

"So go talk to her, she can't avoid you in person." His eldest sibling replied without looking up from the notes and pictures strewn across the kitchen table.

"Have you forgotten, I'm grounded."

Kevin looked up and squired a smile at his brother as he ticked off reasons being grounded didn't mater:

"Dad, left early this morning to go back into work.

Mom's got some meeting with some member of some church.

Joan's not even here. She grounded too but she left right after mom."

"Where'd Joan go?"

"To go see that girl in the hospital I think. But that's not the point, the point is that no one's here to tell you you're grounded, so go see Grace and stop wining to me about it."

"But how can Joan be at the hospital, she's grounded?"

Kevin blew an exacerbated breath through pursed lips and threw his pencil across the kitchen at Luke. It landed true to aim square in his chest.

"Go get her Romeo, don't take no for an answer."

Luke nodded, in contemplative silence and started to leave through the back door. Kevin was right, he need to talk to Grace, face to face, make sure she had nothing to distract her and just lay everything out on the table. He could no that, he had to do that because this covert confidentiality crap was starting to grate on his nerves.

He was halfway through the back door when the voice of his mother stopped him in his tracks.

"Where do you think you're going mister? You're grounded remember?" A smile pulled at Helen's lips as he turned around guilt stricken. "And for the first time in at least three years as far as I can recall" she added cheekily, setting grocery bags down on the island.

"You don't understand, mom. She's not answering my calls, she's not online, I've got to talk to her."

Luke absentmindedly began to help put the groceries away; he never did well staying in one spot when he was nervous or excited. As his mother unloaded the bags, he put the canned goods and boxes that go on the highest shelves away. There was a fluidity to their interaction that spoke to how he often assisted her while rambling about something going in his life. She remembered a time not so long ago when Kevin was the one retrieving the sugar from the top self of the panty while Luke waited patiently for his morning pancakes, sitting at the kitchen table still in his pajamas.

Helen came back to the present with her son's blue eyes pleading to be granted just this one reprieve.

"...so, can I go talk to her, please mom. It's vital to my sanity that I ..."

"Girls are going to have you questioning your sanity for the rest of your life Luke. You'll see Grace tomorrow at school."

"That is so unfair! Joan's grounded too and she gets to spend all day out of the house, yet you keep me holed up here under what other pretense?" He set his arms across his chest, knowing his mother had no reasonable explanation for the blatant double standard.

"Joan is at the hospital with Judith, who has no one else to stay with her. While Grace ...

Luke instantly saw red. How dare she start comparing Grace to Judith,

"JUDITH is the one that got us all into this mess in the first place with her stupid party. Grace had nothing to do with any of this and in all actuality mom, if Grace hadn't been there last night Joan would be visiting Judith in the morgue rather than the hospital. How can you do this to me? I know Grace doesn't come across as...

Helen held up an open palmed hand in front of Luke's face stopping him mid sentence. She smiled knowingly and opened a Tupperware container of cookies, tilting the container as a peace offering to her tormented son. He took three and went to the refrigerator for milk as Helen got glasses.

"Look honey, I like Grace I really do. And I'm not doing this to you but rather for you and for Grace. What I was going to say, before you interrupted me, is that while Judith is confused and alone, Grace is neither. Grace has closed her self off very deliberately for reasons she may or may not understand yet. If you go running over there making demands, she's likely to shut you out completely. All I'm suggesting is that you take some time to really think about you need to say to her and how to do it with kindness rather than as a defense mechanism"

"She's got these rules mom, they're insane and Kevin says I need to stand up to her, that she wouldn't be in this if she didn't care"

"Kevin. Didn't have a very good track record when it came to girls in high school."

Luke let out a short laugh that his mother echoed.

"Just remember that if you back her into a corner, Grace is the kind of girl who's going to come out swinging."

Sometimes it amazed him that no matter how little they spoke, his mother seemed to not only know what was going on in his life, but understand it better than he did himself. Luke nodded, kissed her on the top of the head as he reached around her and grabbed two more cookies out of the container.

"Thanks mom" He bit into a cookie and headed up stairs.

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Grace,

I'm going to attempt to write this without using the big words and scientific analogies that I know annoy you to no end. Which is difficult because when I'm nervous I spout random facts, as I'm sure you've noticed. This confidentiality agreement Grace, I just can't do it anymore. I feel like I'm living this other secret life. Which in itself may have been cool under different circumstances. But not like this, not with you. This sneaking around, you deserve better than that and so do I. Cognitively I understand your motivations behind making me sign that contract, but the duality it's producing in our relationship is causing me to question my sanity.

I know you're scared. And before you go getting all pissed off. I'm glad you're scared, I am too, it means that what ever this is going on between us, matters, that it's real. I'm scared of everything, of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and having you push me even further away. I measure your reaction to everything I do, just trying to develop a template of what's allowable and what's not. I don't want you to shut me out for getting too close, I don't want to stand of so far that I let you slip through my feeble grasp. It's a fine balance that I'm not sure how much longer I can keep up.

I know you care about me. I can see it in the way you look up at me from a just broken kiss. I can feel it in the way you tremble when I first pull you toward me in once we reached a clandestine spot. But then at school, at home, anywhere I find you, you never look at me, you hardly speak to me. I'm beginning to wonder if it's all in my imagination. I feel your heart really race in time with mine when I hold you, or do I really, am I some how just projecting the way I feel back at you, hoping against logic that you feel the flutters in your chest when I look at you, the way I feel them when you look at me. If you don't feel these things when we're together, then I am truly sorry Grace. You deserve someone who can make your heart stop and simultaneously give it a reason to keep beating.

I hate that I signed an agreement forbidding me asking these questions or telling you what a beautiful person you are, inside and out, Grace you are so very beautiful. I don't know why you try so desperately to hide that light that you just naturally radiate. I am not going to try to understand why you use this shield of leather and cynicism. My hope is that soon you will trust me enough to step out from behind all that. I know your past hasn't always been pretty , I don't know how. I'm just asking that you not judge me by how others have hurt you.

It's ironic in a sad way. You probably felt safe with me. Never imagining I'd ever climb the walls of logic to delve into such emotionally charged subject matter. I certainly never planned on writing a letter like this. Once I started it just flowed. So it must be what's really on my mind. I doubt that you've even read this far ... only I think maybe you have, I think maybe you do feel about me the way that I do about you.

That contract, Grace it was never about keeping everyone else out of our business. You never have cared what anyone else thinks, neither have I. It was about keeping close and careful control of your heart. I can't continue in the confines of our original agreement. It was about trying to prevent the inevitable. What it boils down to is this, I may not be in love with you yet, but I'm falling faster than I ever thought possible.

Luke

He smiled, his first real smile since he signed that damn contract. An immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders. As he clicked the 'SEND' button and watched the letter disappear into cyber-obscurity making it's way to Grace's email box a new tension settled in his stomach.

If nothing else, first period physics is sure going to be interesting tomorrow.

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TBC – if you think I should. Let me know.