[ he doesn't expect her to be surprised over any of it necessarily, not when he's already unloaded plenty of truths in the past; now, it was simply more a matter of gradually providing those in-between details, everything that had guided him from point a to b since the time he'd lost his family to when he'd ended up at a speed dating table to meet his eventual fiancee. ]

Not exactly. Not at first. [ because the trial is only the start of it all, really. ] They wanted me to plead PTSD. Get off lighter by saying I was out of my goddamn mind. [ there's a twitch in his lips at those words. ] Some phony insider cop told me there was a guy in the prison who had the answers I needed, so I — I took the stand. And I said the truth. That I wasn't crazy. That this was me and I'd done it again if I had to.

[ admittedly, he'd made a bigger scene of it than he probably had to. sure did piss off the masses. ]

Kind of split with the counselors after that. [ though he'd had other meetings with murdock, but if there is something he's going to keep from wynonna, even now, it's red's secret. least he could do for that asshole. ] All them except for Karen. She — [ averted eyes again, teeth briefly gnawing his lip. ] She's kind of like you, yeah? Stubborn as shit, won't take no for an answer. Even after the trial, she was always the one who wanted to make sure I got out of it all. Said she — she wanted an after for me, a life outside the revenge, the killing.

[ he pauses, swallowing hard before he looks back up, eyes gazing to wynonna again. ]

Took me a long time to really believe I even deserved that.