Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist or any of the characters in this story. They belong to CBS, and it's constituents. I'm merely playing in their sandbox.
Summary: Lisbon comes to understand that sometimes, it's not the nightmares we should fear. It's the dreams.
I'll Take the Nightmares Any Day
I shouldn't be here at half past midnight still doing paperwork. Honestly, the case wasn't that difficult! But no, Jane just had to pull one of his stunts again, and now I'm stuck here filling out forms to keep Minelli from canning his manipulative backside. And mine. Rather than punish the rest of my team for Jane's misdemeanors, I ordered them all to go home with a glare for Jane and a 'Good Job' for everyone else. They can finish their reports tomorrow.
I hear the faint sounds of cloth-on-leather and a sigh come from the bullpen, which reminds me that not everyone followed that last order. Not that that is anything new with my consultant. Sometimes I dream of the days before Jane joined my team, and remember them with longing. Days where there was more obedience and less paperwork.
I decide to remove my shoes and get comfortable, seeing as I still have about an hour's worth of work ahead of me before I call it a night. The entire day has been rather uncomfortable.
O*O
A woman was found dead in her home with her wrists slashed, and the local law enforcement officers couldn't decide if she had committed suicide or had been murdered. The only thing keeping it from automatically being ruled a suicide were the inexplicable bruises on her forearms. It looked like suicide, but Jane insisted it was murder. The only reason he could give me was, "She wouldn't have picked up her dry-cleaning that morning if she was planning to kill herself."
When we went to interview her sister about the deceased's state of mind, the first thing Jane did was ask the sister's husband, "So, how long have you been having an affair with your sister-in-law?" I, of course, wanted the couch to open up and swallow me whole. The husband's reaction was as predictable as the sunrise. He started shouting about Jane's nerve and how the CBI was going to hear about this and he would have Jane's credentials and my badge on his wall for making such outlandish accusations. Really, if I hadn't heard it many times before from more than a dozen other people Jane had made similar accusations to, I would be rather nervous. I kicked Jane out to go sit in the car and proceeded to try and smooth over the ruffled feathers.
Long story short, the bruises had come from the husband. It turned out that she had been coming on to him for months and he kept rebuffing her. He had all the e-mails and voice mails to prove it. When she had literally thrown herself at him that afternoon when his wife was at work, he had physically removed her from the house. I suppose the nail in her coffin had been when he threatened to call the cops if she ever touched him again. It turns out that one of the e-mails was a veiled threat to kill herself. She just couldn't live without him.
I apologized again for Jane's tactless question, but the man insisted he was going to inform Minelli about the lack of control over my consultant's behavior. When the husband stood with me at the door to see me out, he pointed over to Jane, who was leaned-up against the rear quarter panel, and said, "His mouth is going to get you killed someday, mark my words." Internally I winced, because my mind didn't even want to go there. It had happened once, after all, and it nearly destroyed him.
O*O
I'm brought out of my musing by the loud rustling of Jane sitting up. I'm hopeful that means he's finally going to drag himself out of the office and go home. Maybe, if I'm lucky, he won't realize I'm still here since only my desk lamp is lit. But I know I'm just fooling myself. There is nothing on God's green earth that Jane doesn't notice, especially if it's something he can use to torment me.
My thoughts come to a screeching halt, however, when the sound I hear is not footsteps leaving, but of quiet sobbing. I immediately get up and pad silently out into the bullpen in my stocking feet.
Sitting on the couch, hunched over and with his head in his hands, is Jane. His shoulders are trembling with an obvious effort to contain whatever nightmare has roused him. His heavy breathing is just calming down as I sit on the arm of the sofa, the leather faintly creaking under me.
"Nightmare?" I whisper to him as he quickly whips his head up and wiping the tears from his cheeks. He meets my eyes with that deer-in-the-headlights look before being wiped away quickly with the mask that he rarely takes off.
"Nightmare?" he says quietly with a half-grin on his face. "Nah! Nightmares and I are old friends. I like nightmares. They make me smile."
I suppose he's hoping that his messed up logic and crooked grin will get me to drop it, but not this time. We're alone and he's going to talk. "Sure. Right. Mind telling me that if it's nightmares that make you smile, what made you wake up crying just now?"
"I had a dream."
I suppose somewhere in Jane's twisted line of reasoning, that makes sense. "So nightmares make you smile, and dreams make you cry. That just goes to show," I say while shaking my head, "you really are insane."
"No," says Jane, "it makes perfect sense. It's the nightmares that make me smile, but it's the dreams I fear."
I look in his eyes and can tell he's being sincere. The look on my face has to be one of utter confusion. "So why don't you spell out your twisted sense of logic to me, because I can't follow it, Jane."
The mask crumbles ever so slightly, and the overwhelming pain and grief I know that he hold inside come out for just a brief second before being covered by a blank look. "You see," he says flatly, "When I wake up from a nightmare, I can look around at the world and see that things aren't that bad at all. They could be a hell of a lot worse, and that makes me smile. But when I dream, I see my wife or I hold my little girl. I'm happy. Everything's wonderful.
"But then I wake up," his voice croaks out, "and all I can see is what I did. What I lost. And it's all my fault. So I cry." I can see the tears threatening to spill over in his eyes. And I know they're matched by mine.
I have to look away so I don't lose anymore of my composure. After a minute, I turn back to Jane and see the mask is back up. "So you see, Lisbon," he says brightly, "my logic's not so twisted after all! I'll take the nightmares any day."
There's something in his eyes begging me to let it go at that. He gets up, grabs his suit jacket, and slips it on. He turns to leave with a quiet "Good night."
Just as he gets to the threshold, I call out, "Jane?" He turns to look at me and I say, "I'll take the nightmares, too. After all, you're the biggest nightmare of them all."
His face breaks out into a soft grin as he says, "Thanks, Lisbon."
As I listen to his footsteps fade away, I realize that it's true. For all the headaches and lies and manipulations he has lavished upon me since being attached to my team, he has become a true friend that I care about. So as I go back to my desk to finish up the report on his most recent faux pas, I smile because I know I'll take the nightmares any day, if the dream meant losing a friend.