Author's note: Written for the Mentalist Big Bang on LJ. A huge thank you to my artist Ruuger and to my wonderful beta tromana.
Behind Blue Eyes
To say that Patrick Jane was an inveterate liar was much of an understatement. He'd been practicing his skills ever since his childhood after all. It wasn't like he'd had any other choice, with a father like his own. Lying came at a price though; he'd learned as much throughout the years.
(He was never going to forget that poor dying girl he sold false hope to when he was just sixteen.)
As soon as he fell in love with Angela he vowed he would never lie to her. She was the one beautiful thing about his life, and he didn't want to spoil that at all. Except that he just couldn't stop. Lying had become a second nature to him somehow.
Angela begged him to quit psychic trade. She told him it was too risky a job for a man who was going to be a father in a few months. He promised he would as soon as they had enough money for raising their child. Yet Charlotte turned five before he'd done anything about it.
After that it was just too late.
Charlotte constantly asked her daddy to play with her. He always said he was going to do it tomorrow.
Now that his precious daughter was no more all he could do was stare at her dolls and regret the time he didn't spend with her.
No father should ever lie to his own child.
He'd loved them, his beautiful wife and daughter. No one would ever understand how much he still loved them.
Only, his feelings had turned into something darker. There was just one way he could show them his love now, and that was vengeance. Seeing the man who murdered his family bleed to death was the thing he craved most nowadays. It would be the supreme act of love for those he'd lost.
Then, he would just sink into darkness.
He knew he would have to raise the stakes if he wanted to catch Red John. So, he put on his most cheerful mask and offered his services to the California Bureau of Investigation. His new colleagues eyed him suspiciously at first, only to get used to his crazy stunts in a couple of months. As likely as not, they'd bought his pretense of carelessness, and considered him nothing more than a jester whose mind tricks came in handy when they had to solve a case.
(He'd rather overlook the tentative friendship they were offering him. They weren't able to see how broken and dangerous he actually was, and he'd already enough guilt to deal with on a daily basis.)
Damn Teresa Lisbon and her honest eyes. Deep down, he'd always been aware that she was going to be his undoing someday. For he'd come to trust her, somehow. Even care for her, if he had to be honest with himself.
(That was something that he actively avoided most of times.)
In spite of all his efforts to shield his soul from prying eyes – pain and guilt and grief slowly eating him up from inside – still she managed to catch a glimpse of the man that stood behind his carefully constructed armor.
She wanted to save him. Worse, she believed that he was worth saving when he surely didn't deserve salvation at all. And he was way beyond redemption, anyway.
(Why did she have to make him wish he wasn't so empty? Wish that his future might have in store something more than revenge and death?)
He didn't want to be saved, and yet at the same time he did.
(Only she could be his savior, if he happened to seek one.)
He tried so hard to push her away. (Not as hard as he might have, but still.)
She stubbornly refused to leave him alone though. In the end he just gave up and accepted the fact that she would always be there at his side.
(How much he actually enjoyed their friendship – along with the arguing, the bantering and the flirting – was just a side benefit he never allowed himself to appreciate too much. Look what had happened to Kristina Frye, and he'd only asked her out on a date.)
Had he been a less selfish man, he would have simply run as far from her as he could.
But he was selfish. And he needed her more than anything in this world.
Even if he knew he was going to break her heart someday.
It took him almost nine years to understand he'd fallen for Lisbon.
That wasn't enough to stop him from seeking revenge. He had to get to Red John first. Only then he would be finally free to love again.
Lisbon had saved him more times than he even cared to remember.
(He'd saved her once too, that time when he had shot Hardy.)
She was the one who still managed to keep him grounded despite everything. The single reason why he hadn't ended locked up in some mental institution yet. He wished he could tell her that. He wished he was a different man, and could offer her something more than this wild chase for a serial killer.
Lisbon probably just wanted him to give up on the chase; she didn't want it to destroy what was left of him. She wanted him back in one piece without compromising himself. That was all she probably wanted.
He'd shot a man in cold blood, and yet she didn't give up on him.
Then, he disappeared for six whole months, slept with one of Red John's minions, and pulled a crazy stunt that led to nothing in the end.
She backed him up nevertheless. Saint Teresa would never forsake the people she cared for. She was his stubborn, loyal, caring Lisbon.
(Red John himself had guessed how much she meant to him. It was a wonder that he hadn't killed her yet.)
He couldn't tell whether he was more happy or scared when he finally had to face the fact that she loved him too.
Lisbon had somehow arranged for him to meet Lorelei alone.
The idea of touching her disgusted him, and yet he knew he had to. So he took her over the table of the interrogation room, but it was Teresa's name that he cried out as pleasure blew his mind.
As soon as she could speak Lorelei remarked dryly that every man she slept with seemed unable to get Teresa Lisbon out of his mind.
Teresa insisted that they should take advantage of Red John's weird fascination with her. He grabbed her shoulders and did his best to talk her out of such an insane idea.
She simply refused to listen.
He couldn't help shuddering as that monster dropped a kiss to Teresa's neck. Red John didn't have any right to lay his filthy paws on her, regardless of what he thought.
When Cho and Rigsby broke into the room and leveled their guns at his long-time foe, Jane's only thoughts were about Lisbon.
She strode out of the building and ordered him to follow. His hands were still trembling as they reached her car. While hers never wavered as she clutched the steering wheel and drove back to her apartment.
Teresa wiped away all of his tears as she made love to him gently, releasing him from his self-inflicted punishment at long last.
I love you – that was all he kept on whispering against her mouth, again and again.
Perhaps she would be able to turn him into a better man someday.