I may write more of this one if I think of somewhere else to go with it, but for now it's just a one-shot, kind of sad, but see what you think. Thanks for reading
Teresa Lisbon walked into the main entrance of the CBI headquarters and headed straight for the elevators up to the Major Crimes Unit, of which she had once been in charge. Tagging along beside her, clinging onto her right hand, was her little daughter, Katie, who was just coming up on five years old. The little girl had been to the CBI headquarters only a handful of times before, mostly before she could remember, but she knew it had something to do with her mom and how she met her father, who she herself had never gotten the chance to know.
It would be a long while yet until Katie came to know and understand fully the events of her late father's life, and the portion of her mother's life that involved him, so for now she simply accepted the vague ways in which her mom would mention him in passing; the way he could effortlessly execute a magic trick, and would do so at the most inappropriate and awkward moments; how he drank tea from this funny turquoise cup that only he used; how he slept more on a worn leather couch than in a bed, and liked it that way. Even at her young age, Katie could sense her mother's grief, still present after these five years, and knew not to press her for information.
As she waited for the elevator Teresa looked down at her little girl and was shocked to see a large pair of blue eyes, Jane's exactly, looking back at her. It was something she never got used to. Katherine Jane Lisbon had gotten her mother's fairly straight, dark hair, but everything else seemed to come from her dad. Especially like him was the dazzling smile that was so surprising on an otherwise serious face, and the lively blue eyes that had spent years teasing and winking at her, before suddenly, tragically disappearing, only to reappear on the face of this little girl.
The elevator opened with a ding and Teresa walked in as Katie, still holding her hand, half skipped, half hopped. "How long do we have to stay, Mom? Are we gonna miss the park?"
"We can't miss the park honey, it's always open. We won't stay too long but I need you to be patient for me, the park's not going anywhere, ok?"
Katie was a generally agreeable child, and nodded, satisfied. "What do we have to do here, mom? Are you gonna talk to people? You know people here, right? Do they still come to work here?"
Teresa laughed. Katie also had her father's mouth. Before she had time to answer her daughter's endless questions the elevator doors opened to the Major Crimes Unit and Katie was distracted as her mother led her into the halls buzzing with people. Intimidated by the sudden rise in people and volume, Katie grew quiet and hugged closer to her mom as they walked. Pulling her daughter along, Teresa headed straight into Special Agent Minnelli's office, where he had resumed his position of Head of CBI after attempting to retire. Virgil Minnelli looked up as Teresa and Katie walked in without knocking. His eyes lit up and he quickly rose from his chair and circled around his desk to embrace Teresa tightly.
"How are you? And who's this?" Minnelli knelt down in front of Katie and pretended not to know who she was. "And what's your name, young lady?"
Katie grasped her mother's hand with both of her own hands now, and said quietly, looking at her shoes, "Kate." She always introduced herself like this, more out of wanting to say the least amount of syllables as possible to strangers, than out of preferring the name.
Minnelli smiled genuinely and said "It is a pleasure to meet you Kate. You can call me Virgil. I've known your mother for a very long time," he stood up with a slight groan, "Longer than she'd like to remember, I'm guessing." He added this last bit while looking at Teresa, as grins grew on both of their faces.
"Boss, I know we're going to lunch, but I just want to say hi to the team, are they in?"
"As far as I know they don't have a case right now, they should be in the bullpen catching up with paperwork."
"Great, we'll just be a minute then." Teresa led Katie out of the office towards her old bullpen, where she had spent many happy and unhappy hours leading the team that had now been taken over by Agent Cho. Katie sensed she would be meeting even more new people (even though they had all met her before she could remember) and her demeanor grew even more timid. As the bullpen came into sight Teresa saw her old friends: Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt.
"Hey, strangers."
In response Teresa was greeted with a chorus of "Oh my gosh!" and "Hi, Boss!" (even though she hadn't been their boss in six years) by the three cops who practically ran from their desks to circle around her and Katie. It took a moment for any of them to notice the little girl now hiding behind her mother's legs, and Van Pelt was the first to crouch in front of her and say, "Hi, I'm Grace. You probably don't remember me, but I met you when you were just a baby."
Katie was still nervous, but Grace looked friendly and open to her, so she said, "Your hair is pretty."
Grace smiled widely. "Thanks! I like your sandals." She pointed to Kate's strappy sandal shoes that had little plastic butterflies on the clasps.
Katie smiled back for the first time. "My mom chose them. I'm not allowed to wear them to preschool though." Grace stood back up and looked at Lisbon.
"I can't believe how much she's grown!" She lowered her voice slightly, "She looks justlike... well, you know." Rigsby and Cho had been quiet as Grace spoke, and both nodded their heads in agreement.
Lisbon nodded, smiling somewhat sadly. "Yeah, I know."
###
The team did know. How could they forget? That bizarre few months over five years ago that changed everything. Finally making a break in the Red John case. Jane going crazy with anticipation before finally figuring out how to sneak away from Lisbon's watchful eye to catch the killer himself, and exert the personal vengeance he deserved. In the end, though, he only beat Lisbon and her SWAT team to Red John's hideout by about a couple of hours. His work was done by then. Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt had burst into the worn down house to find Jane covered in blood, but otherwise perfectly civilized, sitting in a dusty armchair drinking a cup of tea. The mutilated body of Red John lay on the floor, bleeding into the wooden floorboards. Lisbon remembered every day the moment she arrested Jane herself, breaking down into tears while he retained his stony calm. Her hands had shaken badly as she'd fastened the handcuffs around his wrists. Of course, Jane's journey from arrest to jail to prison to trial to freedom was brief. In usual Jane fashion, he talked his way out of the whole mess, thickly laying down a moving speech for the jury that made his trial over the death of Timothy Carter seem downright standard. Jane was once again acquitted unanimously.
The rest of the story, the team was not so familiar with; they only witnessed the effects, often completely unaware of the causes. Like the fact that, the evening after Jane was freed he showed up at Lisbon's door, not sure what to do with himself. He had come over looking for friendship, or perhaps even just a distraction, but he and Lisbon had ended up making love with one another. It didn't seem to help anything, at least as far as Teresa was concerned. Their conversation was short the next morning.
"So, how do you feel? Now that you really got him? I mean, he's finally gone. Do you feel good?"
Jane looked at Lisbon for a moment as he buttoned the shirt that had been all but torn off his body the night before. "I feel stupid, Lisbon. Which is a first for me, as I'm sure you can imagine."
Lisbon was confused. "What do you mean, stupid, you got him! And exactly in the way you wanted, for better and worse. What do you have to feel stupid about?"
Jane looked down, apparently considering how to phrase himself. "I thought I would feel a weight lifted off of me after all these years. I thought I would suddenly somehow feel free, but I think I feel even worse than I did these last ten years, if that's even possible."
Teresa rolled her eyes and slammed a hand down on the bedcovers she was still sitting beneath. "God dammit, Jane, why can't you just let yourself be happy, just for once, I mean, you seriously just achieved your life's ambition and you can't just enjoy it for a moment, can you?"
Jane stopped what he was doing and turned to face Lisbon directly. "Killing Red John was not my life's ambition, Lisbon. My life's ambition was to be a good husband, a good father, and a good provider for my family. I only did one of those things. And the way I went about doing it pretty much sealed the fate of the other two. It simply made killing Red John… necessary." Jane suddenly grew agitated. "But this is the problem, Lisbon, I'm still talking about Red John, now that he's gone I can forget about him, so why can't I? At least all those years after he killed them I had a purpose, I had something to keep me going, but now…what's left for me? An empty house in Malibu with a basement full of memories."
Lisbon grew quiet for a moment, something in her head clicking. "I thought your house was entirely empty."
Jane didn't look at her, buttoning his vest. "I sold all the furniture and most of their clothes and possessions, but I couldn't throw away the photos and certain things… mementos, you know."
"Like what?"
Jane appeared to think for a moment, not like he was trying to remember, but like he was deciding what to be truthful about. "Just-" Jane cleared his throat, "Just some things they wouldn't have wanted me to throw out, like this quilt my wife had that her grandmother made for her… besides a few clothes it was the only thing she brought with her when we ran away, it reminded her of her family, which was the one thing she missed about the carny life. I couldn't just toss it out like garbage."
Lisbon's emotions were torn; she felt touched that Jane had opened up to her like this, but concerned to hear of the way Jane still referred to "his wife" rather than Angela. He had spoken of her like this every time she'd ever been mentioned in Lisbon's presence, and, in Lisbon's mind at least, it was a sign that he still had not come to terms with her death.
"What about your daughter? Did you keep any of her things? She must have liked that little tricycle or you wouldn't have left it around, would you?"
Jane looked, if possible, even more reluctant to answer this question. Lisbon gave up. "Forget it, Jane, you don't owe me an explanation for anything. Just be happy, okay?"
###
"So, Katie, do you know what your mom used to do with us here at the CBI?" Katie Lisbon was sitting on an old looking leather brown couch while three agents in rolling desk chairs sat facing her. She looked at Rigsby as she answered his question. "Catch bad guys. Mom says you guys locked up people who killed other people." While Rigsby and Van Pelt broke out into isn't-she-adorable smiles, Cho remained still faced and said, "Actually, we just gathered evidence that allowed us to legally arrest them, it's the trial process and final decision of the jury that gets them locked up." Katie looked wholly unperturbed at being corrected, much like another certain someone that had once sat on that very couch. That very thought had obviously occurred to Van Pelt.
"You know, your dad used to help us solve crimes too." She shot a what's-the-big-deal? look in response to Cho and Rigsby's what-are you-doing!? looks. Katie seemed oblivious to this exchange and said "I know."
Cho, his face still hard, nodded at Katie and said, "What do you know?"
Katie looked her toes sticking out of her butterfly sandals, and said, "How he was good at guessing stuff about people and figuring out who was the bad one."
Van Pelt looked as though she was about to say something, but then decided not to. Rigsby was visibly uncomfortable, and said quickly, "Yeah, well Jane, uh, your dad, closed a lot of cases. Helped us catch bad guys." Rigsby added the last part at Katie's obviously confused expression. Cho said, "Is that all you know?"
Katie considered for a moment and then shrugged and said, "I guess." Van Pelt looked a little heartbroken. Even more so when Katie added nonchalantly, "It makes my mom too sad."
Van Pelt and Cho shared a concerned look, while Rigsby looked at his hands, and muttered, "I hear ya, kid."
###
After their night together Lisbon didn't see Jane for years. She never saw him again alive. He didn't show up for work and didn't answer Lisbon's phone calls, and when she showed up at his long-term motel room she found it vacated, no trace of her consultant left behind. She even went so far as to make the 7-hour drive to his Malibu house, but found it, too, empty- although that had been its permanent state for the last decade or so. After a week Jane was officially declared a missing person. Alerts were released nationwide in the search for the missing CBI consultant. Lisbon was worried sick, her fear made no better by her previous experience with Jane disappearing as he pleased. If anything, it made her feel worse, as she knew how unlikely Jane was to pull the same ploy twice; especially now that he had no Red John left to hoodwink. Her anxiety became ten times worse when, a month after their night of lovemaking and Jane's subsequent disappearance, Lisbon found herself unable to hold down food, and gaining weight around her midsection. Her doctor confirmed the pregnancy, and Lisbon's were not tears of joy.
Although Lisbon had always considered herself a very private person, she immediately felt like telling her team the news. She didn't know why, but, now carrying his child, she felt the desire to heed the advice she had several times given Jane; to open up, and trust his team, because they were a family. She tried not to remember how he had responded on one of these occasions: "People who get close to me, bad things happen to them."
The team had been supportive, but suspicious of Lisbon's insistence that her physical relationship with Jane had been a one-time thing only. Though Lisbon knew how obvious her growing emotional intimacy with Jane had been over the last few years, she was shocked that her team thought that she and Jane had had something more. In any case, the small matter of her surprise pregnancy wasn't doing her assurances any favors. When Lisbon gave birth, 8 months and 2 weeks after going to bed with Jane, they were no closer to finding him; he hadn't left a single clue behind, obviously completely unwilling to be found.
Lisbon sat in her hospital bed just hours after welcoming her daughter, trying not to think of all the big, scary things about her situation- how she would raise a child by herself, how she would be able to manage her career, where the hell was Jane and would he ever be there for his daughter- and focused on the task of choosing a name. Lisbon had always known that her child's last name would be her own, but now that it came to filling out the birth certificate, it felt wrong to leave Jane out entirely. She knew in her heart that Jane would have been there for his child if he knew, if he wasn't so damaged. In a rare light moment Lisbon giggled while filling out the birth certificate, acknowledging that she was lucky Jane had a girl's name. She chose 'Katherine' for her grandmother, and called her Katie for short. As she sat in her bed cradling her new daughter, Lisbon thought of Jane, and knew deep down that he would probably never see his second child.
By the time Katie was two years old, and growing into a smiley, mellow little girl, Lisbon had somewhat accepted her situation. It was almost three years since she last had last seen Jane, after the one night they spent intimately together, and she could already envision a life in which she could survive as a mother and as a person without the presence of Patrick Jane. Her heart ached every day in mourning of the childhood Katie could have had with Jane as a father, and constantly reminded herself that there was no use in anger, not at Jane, and not at the demons that had prevented him from living in peace. She knew that he had planned for a second life after Red John, a second chance. He would have been there if he'd known, if he'd been released. But his scars were too deep.
It was during this period of gradual acceptance of Jane's disappearance that Lisbon's world was shaken all over again, almost to the point past which she could recover. Jane's dead body was found in a motel room in Seattle, Washington. The official cause of death was ruled as a lethal overdose of prescription sleeping pills. Jane, who'd always loved his sleep so much, had decided not to wake up again.
Lisbon was woken up by her cell phone vibrating on her nightstand. She thought of ignoring it, but when it kept buzzing, insistent on her answer, she finally gave in and wrenched herself out of her delicious sleep, grabbing at her phone in the dark and fumbling for the 'answer call' button.
"Agent Lisbon."
"Teresa, it's me, we've… we've found Jane." Agent Minelli's voice was somber and hesitant, but his words acted like a bucket of ice water over Lisbon's body. For, though she didn't have the understanding of human nature as her one-time lover, Lisbon could hear what Minelli wasn't saying.
"What happened to him?" Lisbon didn't even know what she meant by this. She was still hoping beyond hope that Jane would come back to her.
Minelli's voice was soft now, and he almost murmured when he said, "Lethal overdose, Teresa. He went in his sleep."
Lisbon wasn't aware of any of the specifics until days later. Of the old, dusty Seattle motel where he'd been found, lying fully dressed in his 3-piece suit on top of the bedcovers. Of the neatly stashed bottle of sleeping pills that he'd emptied into his stomach in one go. Of the turquoise cup and saucer that sat on the bedside table, containing the cold remains of a cup of tea. She didn't care about the when, the where, the how of it all. All that mattered was the who. The why. At that moment all she could do was drop the phone, and let her tears take her to somewhere dark, her chest-heaving sobs growing so violent that she feared for a moment that she'd crack a rib, before growing again consumed with her loss, and all of the things that would never happen.