I Took A Memory To Lunch
Today the weather was so pretty
At noon I went out for a stroll
I walked and did some window shopping
And met someone I used to know
The years had been kind to her beauty
When I first saw her my heart jumped
Tonight if I seem disenchanted
I took a memory to lunch
We sat and talked about old days
With misty teardrops in our eyes
And reconfirmed an old suspicion
The past grows old but never dies.
-Tom T. Hall – I Took A Memory To Lunch
A little after one in the morning, Lisbon was aware of the shuffling of feet in the bullpen. The natural investigator in her told her to go and see who it was, but the other half of her told her that it was no one who posed a threat to her. She would just have a peek through the window to check that it was, as her suspicions drew her to, Jane walking around. He was probably making himself some tea, pretending to get a good night's sleep as usual, while actually waiting for her to finish work for the night and go home. It wouldn't be that unusual for him to be waiting to join her at home, not since Red John was gone. They'd often shared nights of friendship, take out over old movies, talking into the night, sometimes even sharing a bed when they fought over who was taking the couch, but never anything inappropriate.
True to her suspicions, Jane was now sat on the couch, all the lights off in the room. She only knew it was him for certain because of the way his shoulders hunched, the way they used to late at night after a Red John case – the way they did when things got too much and he felt like he'd failed his family's memory. It was strange to see him seated like this, a steaming cup of tea beside him on the table, completely untouched, now that the serial killer who took his wife and child was gone. She wondered how long he'd been sitting like that, as she hadn't left her office since the team left at half past eight that night.
With his shoulders hunched over, sitting in the darkness, it hardly seemed like five months had passed since Red John had received the death penalty. It was hard to visualise the progress Jane had made in this time, accepting that the action of Red John's death was closure for him even though it hadn't changed the fact that his family was gone. The side of his head was all that was on show to her as she peered through the closed blinds of her office, his curly hair thrown in various directions from where he must have been running his hands through it in frustration. With this concerning her, she approached the couch he sat on, leaving the paperwork behind her, and moved to stand at the head of the couch behind him. He either hadn't heard her, or was ignoring her completely – she supposed the first option as she could now see the reason he was hunched over.
In his hands was a disc in a clear plastic cover. To anyone else, it could have been a music CD, or a film he wanted to watch, but to Lisbon, who knew better, it was something much more. This was the last piece of the puzzle that had held Jane back all of these years. When he'd decided to move from his Malibu house and was packing up his wife and daughter's possessions ready for the move, he found this disc in his wife's hiding spot – where she had hidden Christmas and birthday presents. He'd found it, and taken it to Lisbon, explaining that it had been his birthday a week after they had died and that it had been concealed by wrapping paper when he found it. He'd unwrapped the card accompanying it, which explained that as it was a special birthday (his thirtieth) they'd done a special present for him, which was on the disc. But he wasn't able to watch it. This, he'd told her, would be the last thing he had to put them to rest, and now that he had it in his hands he wasn't sure he could do it. He'd taken his wedding ring off when he started packing up their things, having it as the first item of his former family that had gone into the elaborately decorated trinket box he was using for the most treasured possessions – the wedding rings, his wife's engagement ring, her favourite necklace, the hospital bracelet his daughter had worn on the day she was born, her christening bracelet, footprints and handprints, his wedding photo...and thankfully, still space for more.
But to watch whatever was on that disc? He couldn't do it.
So he'd kept it with him, always in the concealed pocket of his suit jacket, ready for the moment that he decided he wanted to watch it.
Still standing half-behind him, Lisbon could recognise the tell-tale signs of him lapsing back into his regrets. For a start, his hands were still as they held the disc. Usually, even when he stood still his hands would twist and turn, his fingers would tap against the nearest surface, or his eyes would be darting around the room. It was his natural energy. She'd never once known him to be calm unless he was brooding like this. He was sighing every so often as well, as if he were sighing more than he was breathing, no doubt a sign of the exhaustion he was feeling. He was showing it, of course, but his sighs were not helpless, or restless...just tired.
"Jane," she whispered, reaching out a hand to his shoulder.
His head snapped up, an awful crack sounding from his neck. He winced at the sensation aching through his muscles and then smiled weakly at her. "Hi, Lisbon," he said.
"I thought you'd left already," she said, as she decided not to move her hand from his shoulder.
"I hadn't...clearly..."
"Is everything ok?" she asked him.
His hands jerked a little, drawing her attention once more to the disc he was holding. "This is their last message to me," he said simply. "They didn't intend it to be, but it is."
"I know," she nodded.
"My wife made it, whatever it is. She wanted me to see it and..." he stopped, sighing again. It was heavier this time.
"You haven't watched it," she realised.
He shook his head. "I couldn't," he whispered, as painfully as if he were admitting defeat.
She took a seat beside him on the couch, something she'd rarely done before. The couch was his domain, not somewhere she retreated to for rest or comfort as he did. He was more likely to come to her couch, not her to his. "There's nothing forcing you to watch it," she assured him. "If you're not ready..."
"I didn't want to see it, knowing that after that, there's nothing else," he told her. "But I miss my wife's laugh and my daughter's smiling face, and this...this could have something on there that gives me that back, just for a while. We used to be happy. But knowing they died days before they had to give this to me..."
"You're unsure," she finished for him, when he was unable to form the sentence.
"That's one word for it," he nodded.
She placed her hands over his, and this action made him realise that even though she was wearing her work clothes, she was still wearing the woven friendship bracelet he'd given her a fortnight ago. He'd been entertaining a witness's young daughter while her mother was being interviewed, and they'd made friendship bracelets to pass the time. Lisbon had laughed when he tried to give it to her, and he'd responded by tying it to her wrist. From the strength of the knot, he realised that she hadn't even attempted to remove it.
"Is it that you don't want to watch it, or that you don't want to watch it alone?" she asked him.
"I...I don't know."
"If you don't want to watch it alone, I'll stay," she told him. "Or I can just be nearby, if you need me to."
He shook his head. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You don't have to," she said, giving him a tiny smile.
He stared at her, seeing the strength in her eyes – a strength she was offering him. He wasn't used to this; even after all they'd been through together. He'd always considered them somewhat equal, their strengths and weaknesses bouncing off each other in similar tangents so that in every way, they connected on a mutual level. To have to lean on each other was something they rarely indulged in, and even then they fought it. But now he had to indulge, he had to lean on her, and he had to let her help him, or he was never going to be able to lay them to rest.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Silently, she took the disc from his hands, which immediately started him jittering with anxiety once his focus had been shifted. She led him over to the conference table where the plasma screen was set up. She inserted the disc and then sat down beside him at the table; she held the small remote in her hands as she looked at him. "Are you sure about this?" she checked one final time.
He nodded. "I'm sure."
She pressed the enter button on the remote, which began to play video clips from the disc. The two of them fell into silence as an image of a gorgeous little girl appeared on the screen, a little girl with a furiously curly mop of blonde hair and impossibly blue eyes. "Oh, Claire..." he whispered. The girl was wearing a pink sleep suit and holding onto someone's hands. Then, the hands either side of her let go and she began to take slow, shaking steps. "Her first steps..." he whispered towards the screen, a hitch in his breath already appearing. The screen showed her taking her four steps on her own before she fell back onto her behind with a look off innocent shock. Then the hands that had first held her then picked her up and Jane heard his own voice through the camera. "Don't worry sweetheart, you have plenty of time to learn."
The screen jittered and changed to another image, this time of an older girl, but still the same. "Look at you, messy girl!" a voice said through the video clip. "Violet," Jane whispered, as he had done his daughter's name. Claire was sitting in a high chair this time, making a huge mess with her breakfast. A small breathy laugh told them that Jane was holding the camera. "Is that yummy?" Violet's voice asked. "Uh-huh," the girl mumbled back with a grin – her fathers grin. "Can I try some?" "No, Claire's." "All yours, none for mommy?" "Nope," she smiled. "All Claire's."
The next clip was of Claire at around two years old. She was wearing a white summer dress, her hair having fallen from tight curls into the loose wave that were more like her father's. She ran up to the camera, looking half-anxious and half-excited. "Mommy, snake in garden!" she stressed. "Snake?" "In flowers!" The camera moved, following Claire to a patch of flowers where a younger Jane was trying not to laugh so drastically in front of his little girl. "There, mommy, snake!" Only it wasn't a snake, as their combined laughter on the camera soon proved to them. It was a caterpillar. Claire, on the other hand, didn't find this fine. "No laugh!" she told them. "Snake eat pretty flowers!"
Again, Claire grew in the space of a few seconds, her hair longer now, just past her shoulders. She was wearing a glittery dress, with a matching alice band pulling her hair from her eyes. "And why are we all dressed up today?" Jane's voice asked from behind the camera he was holding. "Birthday!" Claire clapped her hands. "And how old are you today, Claire?" he asked her. "Three!" she said, thinking hard and holding up the correct amount of fingers. "What happens when we're three?" he asked her. "We're big girls!" she said, throwing her arms in the air. "What about when you're a really big girl? What do you want to do when you're a big girl?" Jane asked her. Claire didn't hesitate in her answer and jumped on the spot. "I'm gonna do lots of dancing all the time and people will come and see me," she said, and to prove her point she began to dance around on the spot.
There were more clips, all of which bought tiny smiles to Jane's lips, even if they were incredibly sad ones. Lisbon felt almost as if she were intruding on their special memories, but she dared not move. She watched the clips in silence, completely still as she watched the recorded moments of when Jane and his wife had said their wedding vows, said 'I do' and kissed one another to applause. She saw Jane holding his daughter for the very first time, unable to form words to the questions he was being asked over the video camera because he was so taken with the beauty of the tiny creature in his arms. She saw a young Claire walking around in her mother's high heels and her father's tie, unaware that she was being filmed. She saw Jane kneeling beside his daughter's bed, having to tuck in Claire's dolls and bears before she agreed to go to bed herself. She saw his daughter dancing, always dancing, always smiling. There was one clip where Claire was crying, but she was roughly four years old, tucked into her father's shoulder as he rocked her tears away, comforting her as she cried because a boy at school had kissed her on Valentines day, and Jane was assuring the little girl that a boy wouldn't be allowed to kiss her again until she was fifty years old.
Then Claire in a navy-blue t-shirt and jeans was sitting on a wall in a garden, curling her hair around her fingers. She was older now. Five years old, Lisbon guessed. She was staring to look less like a little girl and more like a miniature woman with her inquisitive eyes. The camera came up close to her and she stared at the lens. "Ok, Claire, are you ready?" Violet's voice asked. "Yeah," she nodded. "Do you want to do your message to daddy now?" "Yeah." Lisbon felt Jane stiffen beside her, knowing that this was video footage that he hadn't seen before. "Hi daddy! Happy birthday!" Claire waved at the camera. "Mommy said you're going to watch this on your birthday, and that I'm not allowed to say you're old now. I'm going to make you a cake on your birthday too, and it's going to be really nice! I wanted to get you a puppy for a present but mommy said that's a present for me and not for you, so your present is going to be this and lots of hugs and kisses that you get forever and ever. I think you're the best daddy in the world because you tuck me in bed, and you do dancing with me, and you make me laugh and you give me specially warm hugs. I hope that we get to have special warm hugs forever because they're really nice. I love you so much, daddy!"
Lisbon felt herself tearing up at this point, so she could hardly imagine what watching this was doing to Jane's heart. She couldn't see his face because he was facing directly towards the screen. Claire Jane had been a beautiful, sweet little girl who had adored her father above anything in the world, and her life had been cruelly ended just a few days after she had recorded this message. This may well be the most recent image that Jane would ever have of his daughter that wasn't a crime scene photo. At least she's smiling, Lisbon told herself. The last documentation of his daughter alive would be a permanent imprint of her beautiful smile as she told her father that she loved him and that he was the best father in the world.
"Hi, Pat."
Focusing once again, Lisbon found the screen filled with the face of Jane's wife, Violet. She really was a beautiful woman, and it was clear where Claire's nose and face shape came from – the girl really would have grown into the perfect mix of both her parents. Violet had mousy hair and blue eyes, something that made them seem like a perfectly secluded family unit. Without thinking, Lisbon remembered that she had hold of Jane's hand still and she gave it a small squeeze when he let out a shuddering breath at the sight of his wife directly addressing him.
"By the time you watch this disc, Claire and I will be hiding far away...because I'm about to tell you something that you really don't want to hear. You're officially old, Patrick Jane. And now that I've said that, you'll notice that Claire and I aren't in the room anymore because we'll be hiding from the 'I'm old and pathetic' speech you probably want to give," Violet's image teased. "But really, since it's your thirtieth birthday today and we wanted you to have something special and memorable, and I figured what was more special and memorable than the moments we've already shared together?"
Jane rubbed his hand over his eyes for a moment, unable to stare into his wife's eyes. "Do you want to stop?" Lisbon asked him softly. Jane shook his head, returning his gaze to the screen.
"I wanted you to be able to watch this when you have bad days about thinking you're old, because they're going to happen someday. And someday, when we're really old we'll be able to watch this and remember how our relationship started out – just in case the later memories replace them. We'll have to make more of these videos, so that we can add more special days onto it, of Claire's prom, Claire's first boyfriend, her wedding...maybe even our grandchildren! That's one good thing about getting old, right? We get the grandchildren, and we get to listen to Claire complaining about not getting enough sleep because her baby has inherited the sleeping patterns that she used to have."
"Yeah..." Jane whispered to the television, lost in the message.
"But that's a while off yet. She's only five, a bit too early to be condemning her to sleepless nights and dirty diapers. She's really growing up now though, and isn't she getting beautiful?"
"Yeah..." he whispered again.
"So beautiful," Violet gushed on the screen. "She's our little girl, and she's growing up, and if getting another year old means that we get to see another year of her life then, Mr Jane, you don't get to complain about getting any grey hairs. Our daughter has a wonderful father, a father that she loves more than anything in this world, and she doesn't care how old you are. All that matters to her is that she gets to have you in her world, just like it's special enough for us to have her as a part of our world. And we're just another year into growing old together, like we said we would. One day, we're going to be old and gross together and turning thirty is going to seem like the highlight of your youth. It's another year of memories, another year of life, and another year of loving having you as a part of our family. Claire loves you. I love you. We love you so much, and you are an amazing husband or father, no matter what age you are. You're always going to be my Pat, and Claire's daddy, whether you're thirty or eighty. So this is our happy birthday to the brilliant Patrick Michael Jane, thirty years old today, the nineteenth of July, 2005, and our tribute to the perfect husband and father you've always been to us, and always will be. We love you, Patrick."
And then that was it.
It was over.
Violet's face disappeared and Jane cried out in protest when the 'stop' symbol appeared in the corner of the screen. He took the remote from where Lisbon had set it down on the table and rewound the video a bit, pausing it on her face when she was smiling at the screen. He went up to the screen and stood close before the image, touching the plasma for a moment. Smiling. That's how he wanted to remember her. Smiling. Happy. Loving.
"There are a million things I wish I'd told you before you died," he whispered at the screen, shaking his head. "I'm so sorry."
"Jane..."
He turned, and Lisbon was standing behind him, unshed tears in her eyes from having witnessed what an idyllic life Jane had once had, pain from finally seeing with her own eyes what he had lost. He stepped forward, closing the gap before she could react to his moments and holding her tightly. She tensed for a moment, unsure of what to do. He'd hugged her before, more frequently since Red John had died, but never this fiercely. His arms were so tight, as if he were trying to melt them into one person...or as if he were afraid she'd disappear if he let her go.
"I should have told her," he vented.
"You told her," she assured him softly, refusing to believe that Jane hadn't told his wife that he loved her every day. She put one arm on his back and the other on the back of his head, her fingers delving into his hair.
"It shouldn't have happened to them. They weren't done living yet."
Lisbon was silent for a moment. Her fingers relaxed against his head, combing through the hair at the base of his skull. He sighed, and buried his head further into her hair, blocking out the world as she whispered. "I know."
"You're always going to be here, right?"
She was shocked at the sudden change of direction. "Jane..."
"I can't lose another best friend, Lisbon. I've already lost one of the women I've loved, I can't..." he broke off, taking a shuddering breath. "Promise me you'll always be here."
She couldn't promise that. For a number of reasons she couldn't promise him that. Her job was far too dangerous for it. She could get shot in the line of duty, killed in an instant, erased from life in a single moment. One moment could change everything. It was something she tried not to think about but it was a possibility she couldn't ignore – not when Rigsby had been almost burnt to a crisp, and when Grace had almost been shot in the torso. As much as she could pretend otherwise, she knew that something was eventually going to part them. However, despite the overwhelming odds against them, she still nodded.
"I promise," she assured him. "I'm not going anywhere. We can...we can be broken together."
They remained there for some time, unsure of what else to do. They both knew that he couldn't go home alone in this state, so they didn't move; keeping distance between themselves and the rest of the world. Jane focused hard on breathing in and out, however many times he needed until the image of his wife and daughter's face and the startling reality of losing everyone he had ever cared about didn't hurt him anymore. Lisbon, on the other hand, couldn't stop replaying his words in her head.
I've already lost one of the women I've loved, I can't...
Can't what? She wondered.
Can't understand?
Can't cope with it?
...or can't lose another?
END.
The charm that draws two hears together
By four o'clock was just too much
The days and years we had between us
Were down to just two coffee cups
You can't relive life in an hour
The afternoon kept wearing on
I'm sorry that I'm late for dinner
I took a memory to lunch.
-Tom T. Hall – I Took A Memory To Lunch.