Chapter Text
When Grace was young, all she had ever wanted was a family. She wanted babies to care for, children to nurture. She wanted to pack their lunch boxes with personalized notes and make them smiley faced pancakes for breakfasts. She wanted to tuck them in every night and make sure that no matter what, they knew they were loved.
Some people might say that had something to do with her upbringing, but that wasn’t really all that important in the end game.
Her mother had been like her, born with a beauty that made other women jealous and men twitchy in their seats. Margaret, Grace’s mother, married young at seventeen to a man who had a smile like a shark and a family business big enough to fund his more unpleasant habits.
His name was not important, as Grace had decided that he wouldn’t be a part of her story when she was very young.
He however, still affected her home life, which was not not unpleasant. Growing up, she had a large pretty house, with pretty paintings and vases and sculptures she wasn’t allowed to touch. The maid came every Wednesday.
Her mother had long ago given up on the idea that her perfect marriage would ever be perfect, and had turned to spending the large amount of money they had on frivolous things, such as said paintings and sculptures and vases.
Grace’s mother also had formed a pretty severe drug habit by the time Grace saw her tenth birthday.
Margaret Moore was not your average addict. Or, at least that was what she told Grace when she mustered up the courage to ask about it.
Margaret was what as known as a “functioning addict”, and had most parts of her life under control. It didn’t really matter that she started the morning with a vodka tonic and a bump of cocaine, or that she went to bed after a generous glass of brandy and two valium. Prescribed, of course.
She was still a good wife, and dressed up for the parties Father sometimes took her to. Sometimes.
Grace grew up knowing not to bother Mommy when she locked the door to her study and didn’t come out for sometimes days. Grace knew how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and she always did her homework. She brushed her teeth every morning and night, and knew the route to the private school her parents had enlisted her in.
By the time she was nine, her father had hired a car to take her to and from school.
By the time Grace was thirteen, she had an understanding with her parents. They would leave her be, and she would leave them be. She’d look the other way when her mother drank a few too many Long Islands at dinner and had to be helped to bed. She pretended she didn’t notice when Father stayed out late and came home with lipstick on his collar. She pretended she didn’t hear the funny noises coming from his study more and more frequently.
She pretended her father’s eyes didn’t make her skin itch, and she carried on.
Grace was blessed, in both beauty and brains, and she graduated her Very Private and Prestigious High School at the tender age of sixteen.
She had applied to a menagerie of colleges, all very far away from her hometown.
She was accepted at Columbia, with plans to become a doctor. Or at least, that’s what she put down on paper. Really, she wanted to get as far away as possible, and it was one of the only colleges her father agreed to.
Freshly seventeen, a freshman at the private college of Columbia, and in a city she’d never seen besides in movies, Grace felt more free than she ever had.
She was on her own, but she was used to this. She loved learning, and found secret small joys in taking classes that her father would call ‘a waste of time’ like art history and child psychology.
She was well liked by the student body, and the faculty. She was polite, gentle mannered, and overall quite beautiful. For a few glorious months, she felt happy. She felt as though she could achieve her dream.
Then came Reginald Hargreeves, and Grace was plucked from her tiny bubble of happiness.
*
At first, Reginald was quite kind. His family came from old money, and could trace their roots back to the Mayflower. He told her this many times throughout their relationship, as if that was something to be proud of. It should have been her first clue.
But Reginald was handsome, and a true gentleman. He didn’t try and sneak kisses, he didn’t pinch her anywhere, and he spoke to her like she was a person, not just a prize to be won.
He asked her about her opinion on his eccentric theories, and actually took her thoughts into consideration.
He was kind, and he accompanied her often. He seemed more interested in his theories and experiments than her, but that was alright. She’d never had a friend before, and Reginald was almost friend-like.
Until, two years into their relationship, he asked for her hand in marriage.
She was confused, to say the least. He laid it out like a business proposal, and it was quite lacking in the areas of romance and affection.
But, it meant that her father wouldn’t have a hold over her, and Reginald promised that she’d never have to see him again.
She said yes.
*
The marriage was a quiet affair. When she was young, she dreamed of a flowing white gown, and a beautiful cake, and happy friends and family dancing and celebrating.
In reality, it happened on a cold Tuesday morning, during a rainstorm. She signed the paper with shaking hands, and smoothed down her nicest skirt.
Reginald looked as he always did, dressed neatly in a suit, and perfectly contained. He signed the paper without any flourish, and they were married.
And so began the loneliest years of Grace Hargreeves’ life.
*
Almost immediately after her marriage, she dropped out of college. It didn’t seem to have a point anymore, seeing that she had left her parents in the past. It didn’t have the same charm.
That, and she didn’t want to still be attached to her father. Even in something so small as tuition money.
Reginald, never Reggie, moved her into his brownstone in the city. It was in upper Manhattan, and quite extravagant, in a way she hadn’t expected. Stuffed animal heads, and original pieces of art, and and odd number of artifacts she never quite scraped up the courage to ask about.
Shortly after their marriage, Reginald graduated. He then began to slowly encase himself into his odd little home, rather like a hibernating bear. He had groceries delivered, and expected Grace to keep up with the chores. He kept a strict schedule, disliked small talk, and was often very curt with her.
Ah, she thought, wedded bliss.
Even so, there were many books for her to read, and maps to study, and art to view. She had a free pass to come and go, as long as breakfast and dinner were ready at the appropriate times.
She found herself visiting museums, and zoos, and the orchestra. It was all very lovely.
They slept in separate beds, on separate sides of the house. He never once touched her.
She ached, terribly, with the need for companionship. Someone to talk to, someone to sit with, anyone really. For the second time in her life, Grace found herself yearning for a child.
She knew how one went about getting a child. She wasn’t silly. At the ripe old age of twenty, she had been exposed to some of it.
Problem was, she didn’t have any drive to initiate the process of creating a child.
It wasn’t Reginald, she supposed. If she found herself out and about, she might catch the eye of a handsome young man. She could never imagine herself, with any man, like that.
So, on a November evening over a dinner of roast duck and boiled potatoes, she told Reginald Hargreeves, “I want to adopt a child.”
His response, in her opinion, was rather outlandish.
“Absolutely not. I will not have any sticky fingers disturbing my home, and absolutely not interrupting me during my studies.”
It was a simple answer. Straightforward. So was her own answer, she thought.
“I’d like a divorce, then. Please.” She sat primly, her silverware crossed over the remains of her meal, her aw set in a hard line.
Reginald seemed surprised at this. He squinted at her from across the table, and sat back in his chair.
“Very well. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers in the morning.”
And that, as they say, was that.
*
She decided to stay near New York, just for the ease. Reginald was completely civil in the divorce, so much so that the divorce lawyer made a joke of how his job had never been easier. Reginald, aware she was relying on him for money, had invested in a farmhouse a few hours north of the city, in a small little farm town. He had given it to her, and a small amount of money, without a fuss. She’d felt odd, taking his money, but he had insisted.
He was nothing if not a gentleman.
The house was big, and quiet. Its rooms were drafty and empty. She found herself wandering the house, feeling like a ghost.
She hated it, and loved it all at the same time.
Grace had never been on her own, and found it surprisingly difficult in some areas, and insanely easy in others. She went to the local farmer’s market (They had a farmer’s market! She’d only ever heard about them from books or movies!) to buy second hand furniture, and very carefully began to build herself a nest.
Like a bird, she flitted through the living spaces, adjusting everything until it felt right. She started in the living room, because it was the easiest to furnish.
It didn’t take long until the space felt warm, and welcoming. No expensive art to never be touched. No priceless vases to worry over. Just comfort. A home.
After the living room, there was the kitchen. As much as she had been forced to take up the mantle of housewife her entire life, she found joy in cooking. In feeding, providing to loved ones.
Then was the dining room, and after that all she really had to do was furnish the master bedroom.
For some reason, she found this extremely difficult. It did feel cozy, but it also didn’t feel like it belonged to her yet. It felt foreign.
Regardless, she settled in quite nicely. She grew to know the people of the small town, which made her endlessly happy.
She met Agnes, the owner of the local bakery, and her doddering husband Hazel. They were an odd couple, but it was easy to see how much they loved each other.
She met Detective Patch, never Eudora, who had a soft spot for Agnes’ chocolate eclairs. Patch, as she was only referred to, liked Grace and often invited her over to drink wine and watch bad horror films.
Patch was Grace’s first friend.
Then came Mr. Pogo, an old man who seemingly single-handedly ran the library (not that there was much to it). He was always helpful, and always had an answer to any questions she asked.
It was a small town, but everyone knew everyone. And slowly, Grace became a part of that everyone. She had a community of people, good people, who had her back.
Patch rubbed her back and cursed out her father the first time Grace ever broke down and told anyone about her upbringing. She was there to hold her and comfort her when Grace confessed her deepest fear, of being alone. Patch was also there when Grace told her about her dreams of motherhood. Of how she thought she was probably never meant for it, but it was a nice thought all the same.
Then came the night when everything changed. The night where twenty two year old Grace Williams (she had her name legally changed, she didn't wan't to be a Moore like her parents) became a mother of one thirteen year old boy.
Luther.