FF_1939453_
Spoilers: The Season 1 finale; there's a flashback to a climactic scene. It helps if you've seen the finale before you read this, but I don't think it's necessary.
Disclaimer: If I owned "The Mentalist," I wouldn't be searching on eBay for a Bruno Heller figurine to add to the Mentalist shrine I've set up in my living room.
Acknowledgements: To SpaceAnJL and Fiveroses, who kindly reviewed and commented, and to my girlfriend, who went over the prose with a fine-toothed comb.
Silence
"Lisbon!"
The tone is urgent. She moves to answer it, walking with deliberate haste from the family room where she's been standing, through the hallway, up a flight of stairs to the next floor.
"Lisbon!"
She looks into one bedroom. No one's there. Another. The same. Where the hell is he?
"Lisbon!"
She's beginning to realize that something is not right. Room succeeds empty room, but the voice sounded close.
She inhales, opens her mouth to call—
—cries out as someone puts a hand on her shoulder.
She sits bolt upright, eyes wide, staring into darkness in a moment of disorientation before she realizes where she is. Strange silhouettes resolve into familiar objects: mirror, dresser, footboard of a bed. Her bed.
"Teresa, what's wrong?"
A comforting arm encircles her shoulders, pulls her back down to the mattress.
"Nightmare?"
She blinks, takes a shaky breath. Looks into her husband's dark, kind eyes, full of concern.
"Just a dream. Someone was calling my name, and I couldn't find them, no matter how hard I looked."
He's used to this; it isn't the first time she's woken in the night. He's grown to accept it, to avoid asking questions she doesn't want to answer. He knows her family history, her career in law enforcement, the loss of mother and father, and later friends and colleagues, to accidents, violence, suicide. It's surprising she sleeps as well as she does.
There's a creak in the hallway and the bedroom door opens.
"Mom, are you okay?"
All she can make out in the dim light from the window is the shadowy outline of a bathrobed figure, but she sees her daughter's face, her frown-wrinkled forehead, as if in daylight, knows it from years of watching, marvelling at the younger, darker reflection of her own face, her own expressions.
"I'm fine. I just had a bad dream. I'm going back to sleep now, and you should too."
"All right, but try not to play alarm clock on me again, okay? At least not tonight."
Unlike her features, her sense of humor is all her father's, and has the power to change the mood in a moment. Teresa stifles a giggle and hears a snort from next to her in the bed.
"Good night." Firmly.
"'Night, Mom." The door closes.
They collapse in (almost) silent laughter as their daughter creaks her way down the hall back to her room.
"Don't encourage her," he whispers into her ear, "She might decide to become a stand-up comedian."
This time it takes a pillow to muffle the sounds she can't help making. The bed shakes, a reminder of other times a little girl came prowling to investigate strange night noises.
Before he can open his mouth again, she shushes him. "Not another word. She needs to be awake in the morning, and I don't want her getting hooked on coffee before she's in college!"
She can feel his smile under her hand, his nod. He pulls the covers back up, snuggles into her back, wraps an arm around her.
"Te amo, Teresa."
"I love you too," she murmurs back, wondering what she's done to deserve so much love and good fortune in her life.
* * *
It's only after his breathing has slowed, his embrace relaxed, that she turns her head to one side and lets the tears run down her face onto the pillow.
She loves him, remembers the exact moment she ceased merely liking him and enjoying his company and began to fall in love with him.
The end of a day-long drive, at a lookout over the Pacific, just the two of them sitting on a bench, close but not touching, separated by a small distance, watching the sunset. His voice breaking the stillness, telling her about another place, the perfect spot to watch an Atlantic dawn, a place he's never shared with anyone.
At the edge of her peripheral vision, the strong lines of his face, not looking at her as he speaks, not even sideways, but staring out at the water. His expression makes her understand what he's afraid to say. Afraid it's too soon (only their fifth date), afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of opening old wounds.
In that moment she realizes her feelings have started to change, that they are a reflection of his. The sense of possibility, of potential, is dizzying, allows her to overcome her own fear, find the right words: I've never been to Miami. Maybe you could show me that place, sometime. If you like.
He turns then to look at her, and she sees his heart in his eyes.
* * *
Her feelings for him haven't fundamentally changed since that moment, only grown stronger, carved deeper by the flow of years. She loves him with all her heart. A love that has laid so many of her old ghosts to rest, given her a life filled with laughter and play and joy as well as pain and duty and the satisfaction of making things right.
But some ghosts still walk, invade her dreams, claim her, despite all her efforts. She thought she'd learned to live with the emptiness, the absence, but knows now she hasn't. Even though there's no turning back, no way to reverse the loss.
Her last thought before she finally falls asleep: Can one woman have two hearts?
* * *
The next morning at the office, Teresa makes her way through the daily pile of paperwork with customary efficiency. When her in-box is empty, she checks her e-mail and finds a message cancelling the three-hour meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
For the first time in months, she has nothing to do at work, and deliberates in a heady moment of truancy whether she might not eat lunch at her desk.
The sudden impulse blooms into full-fledged rebellion, something she hasn't felt in a very long time.
Duty be damned. She's tired of always doing the Right Thing. Just once, Teresa, just once in your life, you can smell the roses on a weekday.
Before she can change her mind, she switches her voicemail and e-mail messages to "away," grabs her bag and walks out the door.
There's a place she knows, a place she almost never goes. A park near the office, tree-shaded benches a short way from a playground, a perfect spot to sit and eat her sandwich and watch children play.
Today, there are a few preschoolers testing out the teeter-totter, the swings, the roundabout. One impetuous child is trying to climb the jungle gym, heedless of her father close behind her, careful not to interfere but ready to catch her if she falls.
She smiles, recalling her daughter at that age, exploring everywhere, peering out at the world through big, dark, curious eyes, filling the air with What? and Why? and How did you do that?
A memory rises, unbidden: those eyes even bigger than usual, mouth open wide, watching Jane make a coin disappear into one ear, then reappear from the other, over and over.
"Do it again!"
Pause. "Again!"
And finally, "Zhay, how you do that? Show me!" Persisting despite his bluffs about the Magician's Code until he finally gave in and did. Practicing the trick, obsessively, until she mastered it. The pride in her eyes when she showed off her skill. The shine in his.
She doesn't know whether her daughter remembers Jane and his magic. They haven't spoken of him in years.
She hides her face in her hands. Crying in a public park is as bad as blushing. Worse. But she can't help it.
Eventually she brings herself under control, dabs her eyes with a tissue and sits, staring at nothing. So much for smelling the roses on a weekday, not that there are any here. She couldn't smell them now anyway; she's completely stuffed up.
The thought makes her grin; it's the sort of thing her husband or daughter would say, making laughter out of life's absurdities, bringing smiles out of sadness.
Somehow comforted, she leans back into the bench and goes back to watching the children play.
* * *
She loves him, remembers the exact moment when she went from the familiar mix of affection, frustration and complete exasperation to the beginnings of something quite different.
The end of a long day in the field, at an abandoned farm, a case finally almost over, too tired to even feel hungry, focusing all her remaining energy on the young woman they'd just rescued.
At the edge of her peripheral vision, sudden movement, then Hardy's face, contorted, his arm grabbing a gun from his deputy's holster. A gunshot breaking the stillness, the deputy going down, already dead. The muzzle moving unerringly toward her.
Another crack, then Hardy falling. Blinking away confusion to see Jane holding the rifle, paralyzed, before throwing it away, the expression on his face one of horror and revulsion and disbelief, stumbling over to Hardy, who cackles and bleeds and dies.
In that moment she realizes things are forever changed between them, though she doesn't truly understand what that means. The rush of blood in her veins, the sheer awareness of being alive when she just almost died, is dizzying, allowing her to overcome the fear she's feeling now the danger is past, to hear her own thoughts: You heard me. Even if you don't know it, you listened.
He turns then to look at her, and she sees the tears in his eyes.
* * *
Some decisions are made after due consideration, deliberately and with forethought. Others make themselves, without you even being aware of the process until it's done.
Teresa reaches into her bag, takes out the notepad she always carries with her, begins to write.
Her feelings for him haven't fundamentally changed since that moment, only grown stronger, carved deeper by the flow of years. He's her other half, her polarized reflection, light where she's shadow, dark where she's bright.
She knows how abandonment feels, what it's like to have someone you love ripped away by fate, or irrevocably fail you.
She finishes writing, walks to a post office a short walk away to buy a stamp and envelope. She knows the address by heart, although it's been years. Some things you don't forget. Can't.
She takes a deep breath and exhales as the letter slides out of her hands into the mailbox, out of her reach, beginning its journey.
She expected to feel as though she'd stepped off a cliff. Instead, she's quite calm. She's missed him more than she's ever admitted even to herself, for longer than she cares to remember.
Oddly enough, she's not worried about the answer. The door she closed is open now, and he can choose whether or not to walk through it and meet her.
She walks to a café down the street, sits on the patio, orders a latte. Takes a sip, leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. The sun warms her face, and she wonders if, at this moment, it is warming his.
* * *
Dear Jane,
There are no words that can make up for lost years. You already know I'm not angry. I understand that you did what you had to do. I also realize my bullshit excuse – law enforcement shouldn't fraternize with convicts – is just that. Bullshit.
I miss you. I want to see you. If you'd like me to visit, please write me care of the CBI. If I don't hear from you, I'll understand.
Love,
Lisbon
A/N: I wasn't expecting to write this; it started with the idea of Lisbon hearing Jane's voice in a dream and came out in one big rush.
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