Authors Note: So, the idea for this came from Ebony10, so yea. Kind of dark. I wasn't going to post this so soon, but I needed the pick me up, and since it's a little quiet out tonight, I thought I'd post it now.
Disclaimer: If this was mine I wouldn't have to be worrying that I apparently suck at my job.
It had been a bad week, a bad month, really. Well, a bad year. Hell, who was he kidding, it had been a bad five, almost six, years. Ever since that monster had killed his family. Since that monster had killed his wife and child in cold blood. But this week was particularly bad.
The case that they had been working on was particularly hard on him. A mother and her small daughter—no more than seven or eight—had been killed and their bodies dumped on the side of the road in a state park. That's what made it a CBI case. State parks were their jurisdiction.
It had taken them a few days (even he had been stumped originally) to figure out that the husband was probably the doer. He was an abusive son of a bitch. He had been abusing the wife before they were even married which was bad enough, but he had recently begun to abuse and molest the daughter. It made Jane sick to think about it. How a father could purposefully hurt his wife and child? Those precious innocent lives lost, killed by the one who was supposed to protect them.
Apparently the wife had found out what he was doing to the daughter and had tried to leave. The husband had found out and had killed them both. When they caught up with him, it wasn't Rigsby that had to be contained in the interrogation room.
He hadn't been able to sleep now for days. Since they had found the bodies actually. He'd had an inkling that the woman and her child had been abused, but didn't have a way to prove it until the autopsy results came back. The underbelly of society never ceased to amaze and sicken him.
He had begged Lisbon to let him back into the interrogation room after Rigsby had to drag him off the father—the bastard who would kill his own wife and child—but she wouldn't let him.
He'll get what he has coming to him when he gets to jail, Jane. Thieves and drug dealers don't take kindly to men who abuse women and children. She had told him this and he knew it was the truth, but he still wanted a chance to get at him.
And now he sat there, at his home (if it could still be called that), trying to sleep. He had been trying to sleep at work all week long and it hadn't worked. He had taken as many pills as he safely could and yet he still couldn't sleep. The images of those bodies kept circling around in his mind, mingled with the bloodied, torn bodies of his wife and daughter and the ghastly image of the bloody smile above his head.
He was getting to the point that he couldn't function. He could go days without sleep. He'd done it before and he would do it again, but this was pushing even his boundaries. He didn't know how much longer he could put up with this no sleep thing.
Almost without thinking he got up off the tattered mattress that he called his bed and made his way out of his depressingly empty house to his car. He got in and just started driving. He didn't even really know where he was going until he pulled onto the quiet street where Lisbon lived. He didn't know what she would say when he knocked on her door and, for a minute, considered turning around and going back to his house, but almost unconsciously he found himself standing in front of her door.
He raised his hand and knocked, waiting there to see if she had heard him. He hadn't bothered to look and see what time it was before coming. He was fairly certain that she was probably already asleep. He was contemplating whether he should knock again, just leave, or pick the lock and let himself in when he heard the deadbolt sliding back and the door creaking open.
She didn't say anything, just held the door open for him to come in. She quietly shut the door behind him and put the lock on again. He looked at her, the dim light from the hall casting shadows on her tired, worn out face. "I couldn't sleep." He said finally, after they had been standing there for what seemed like ages, just looking at each other.
"I know." Were the only words she spoke to him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom behind her. He was curious about what she was doing, but decided to wait and see how it played out before he said anything.
Standing in the middle of her bedroom, he knew that he should be feeling at least a little uncomfortable, but he didn't. Lisbon was standing behind him and he felt her hands on his shoulders, sliding his jacket off and laying in on the cedar chest at the foot of her bed. She stood in front of him and slowly unbuttoned his vest and shirt and slid them off his shoulders. She placed them on top of his jacket.
He wanted to ask her what she was doing, but he just stood there, trying to think of a joke that would make her laugh. The light was still dim, but his eyes had adjusted and he could tell that she has been crying. It killed him that she had been having such a hard time and he hadn't even noticed. He had been so preoccupied with his own pain and suffering that he had completely missed hers.
He found that while he had been thinking she had turned the covers down in her neatly made bed. It hadn't been slept in yet and in the back of his mind he wondered if she had been waiting for him to show up at her door tonight.
She lead him to the edge of the bed and he sat, suddenly finding that he couldn't support his own weight any longer. Instead of going over to the other side of the bed she bent down and took off his shoes—the same old brown shoes that he had been wearing the night he came home to find his life shattered.
Only when she has removed his shoes and socks, placing them on the ground in front of the rest of his clothes, did he lay down in the bed. He watched her come around the bed and for the first time noticed that she was wearing striped pajama pants and a white t-shirt much like the one he had on.
She slid into the bed next to him and, still without speaking, pulled him toward her, putting her arms around him. It took only seconds for him to return the gesture, managing to turn her so that her back was cradled against his chest. He put his arms around her and held her with all he had in him. When he felt her move against him, he was almost afraid that she was going to pull away, but she only adjusted her arms so that she was holding onto his.
They lay that way for a few minutes and Jane thought that she had fallen asleep when he felt wet drops falling on his arm. He responded by pulling her closer and kissing her on the top of her head, which was pulled up right under his chin. The tears that he had been holding back all week finally spill over and fall had into her hair as silently as hers had, making it shimmer slightly in the light that came through the cracks in the blinds. He felt her placing a small kiss on his arm where it was wrapped around her chest close to her mouth and he almost smiled through his tears.
He didn't know how long it was that they held each other and cried because he finally accomplished the one thing he came to her house for: he is sleeping. And in his dream there were not images of bloodied bruised bodies and red smiles, but images of green eyes and brown hair that is soft to his touch. And in his dream, for the first time in longer than he can remember, he was happy and he knew that when he woke she would still be there and, even though the problems wouldn't go away, with her in his arms it would be just that much better.